Who's who at fashion week: an etiquette guide for ticket blaggers from front-row chat to ditching the handbag

From midnight snacks to the curse of the standing ticket, catwalk season is a minefield. Karen gives her guide for blaggers
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Karen Dacre6 September 2016

Refuse to wait in line

Queuing is social suicide, only do it when absolutely necessary. Instead, approach all entrances with the confidence of Kanye West and don’t look back.

This may mean stepping over bewildered fashion assistants or those with the decency to wait their turn but the guilt will subside quicker than the indignity ever would. NB: if the venue is not open on arrival, find a nearby café and wait it out.

Fear invitations marked “ST”

You get your hands on a ticket for the all-important Topshop show and turn up with a sense of achievement that’s greater than that currently possessed by Olympic cyclists Jason Kenny and Laura Trott combined. Then disaster strikes: you are shunted into a holding pen and told you’ve been cursed with a “standing seat”. Cue a lengthy wait in the rain while the superior humans with letters and numbers on their invites trot passed smugly.

Once you make it into the venue you can expect to be shunted to the back of a large crowd (picture Brixton Academy, only without the sloping floor) where you can expect to see the hair-dos of a few passing models. And if you’re really lucky, the back of Anna Dello Russo’s head.

Illustrations by Julie Houts for Stylebop.com

Ditch the handbag

During fashion month there is no better way to blend in beautifully than by sacking your handbag from its role of full-time travelling companion.

After all, as Anna Wintour has been pointing out for years, the most powerful fashion week attendees have no time to schlep around with their lipstick and iPhone charger in tow proffering to leave said paraphernalia with a long suffering driver instead. NB: it’s also crucial that you carry two phones.

Make a swift exit

Catwalk shows are high-speed affairs. Not just because they are over within the blink of an eye but because seasoned attendees must canter in and out of them.

If you know your Demna from your Dior, you’ll know that sprinting out of the show as soon as the designer completes his or her bow on the runway is imperative.

This is not only to ensure that your driver makes it out of the travel chaos and on to the next show before the riff-raff but to ensure all present understand just how important and busy you are.

Have a near-midnight snack

There is little truth to the rumour that fashion folk are phobic about food, what they are is nocturnal diners. And not through choice.

Following a long day of catwalk shenanigans and presentations it’s commonplace for a fashion editor to receive a swanky invitation to dinner. Said occasion will kick off at 9pm with drinks and small talk, dinner will begin at 10.30pm, meaning you can expect a main course at about 11pm.

Smart attendees stop off for a bowl of chips beforehand and make their apologies before dessert arrives.

Illustrations by Julie Houts for Stylebop.com

Master your f’row chat

During a month long season of shows you can expect to sit next to the same person on average of 20 occasions. This means maintaining vibesy conversation can be tricky.

To navigate this social complexity, the fashion editor must stay on script. Approved topics of conversation include: how long you are in the city for, where you are staying and what you thought of Prada.

Tell everyone you’re tired

Knackered, shattered, exhausted or just plain old tired. There are few idioms used more frequently during fashion month. Such exhaustion is not, as critics of the industry might expect, a mere fabrication made up to fill the long drawn-out silences that occur when you’re waiting for a show to start (honest) but rather a truth which results from working 18-hour days for the best part of four weeks. #prayforus

Don’t dare be late for Burbs

Time and Burberry wait for no man, which means Christopher Bailey’s show starts, without fail, precisely at the moment he said it will. For those struggling across London in a chauffeur- driven Mercedes this means a white-knuckle ride and a deep inhale of lavender. It’s the same story in Paris when Louis Vuitton headlines the last day of festivities with a prompt production staged in its foundation — a venue staged a million miles (in fashion terms) from the centre of Paris.

Illustrations by Julie Houts for Stylebop.com

Perfect your poker face

There is nothing more tragic than a fashion editor who wears her feelings on her face. It’s for this reason that Karl Lagerfeld’s extravagant Chanel sets are met with little more than a smirk and a raised eyebrow. And why a swanky A-list party with free-flowing champagne and David Beckham half-naked in the corner, is reviewed with the phrase: “It was fine, I left early.”

Do it in slow-mo

If you want to make it as a street-style star it’s no good sprinting to your car post-show. Instead you need to master the art of the slow but natural walk.

The best place to master this is in Milan, where traffic and snappy photographers, are ten-a-penny. Essentially you need to imagine you’re running across the road then do it as if you were running through honey.

Beat the traffic

When you’ve got 13 shows to see in a day you need a foolproof travel plan. In New York this means an in-depth look at Google Maps and an Uber every 90 minutes, while in London and Milan it means hours spent stuck in traffic jams. Smart attendees ditch their car when possible, knowing that what public transport lacks in glamour it makes up for in efficiency.

Get on a first-name basis

To bluff your way through a month of high-fashion activities forget surnames, particularly those attributed to designers. For example, Christopher Kane should be known only as Christopher. When it comes to brands the opposite is generally true. Alexander McQueen is “McQueen” just as Louis Vuitton is “Vuitton”. Get it wrong and you’ll be found out immediately.

Illustrations by Julie Houts for Stylebop.com

No formal invitation

You’re waiting for a show to start when someone pipes up: “Are you going to the Michael de la Fruit Loop dinner this evening?” Panicked, your face burns with the NFI shame of it all: you didn’t even know there was a dinner. Style the moment out by coming up with an excuse, ideally work-related. “Ah, I have 19,000 reviews to write so I think I’ll give it a miss.” There is also the option of fronting it out like a normal human.

Restrict each outfit to one wear per city

Dressing for the shows is nothing if not a headache. Not because you’re expected to compete with the Vogue girls or with Anna Della Russo’s hat collection but because it involves hours of torturous packing. The key to is to come up with a uniform. A sweater and jeans is a good one. Skirts and shirts also work. As a rule, limit each outfit to one wear per capital. And check the weather: September in New York is a sweat-fest while Paris in October tends to be a soggy affair.

Don’t complain when a show is 20 minutes late

It isn’t. A 20-minute delay is a precursory measure for most fashion shows. However, you can complain when your wait exceeds the 40-minute mark, at which point you are expected to say: “God, who does [insert name of tardy designer] think he is. Miuccia bloody Prada?”

And then tell everyone how tired/busy/hungry you are.

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