My Big Apple Part 2

Tuesday

8:00 AM

Why is Jen staring at me in horror? Oh right, because my breasts look like they are about to give birth to Stonehenge. Oh my god this hurts. What hurts slightly more? Pumping and pouring this liquid gold down the drain.

10:45



Fix hair? Eat breakfast? Fix hair? Eat breakfast. I choose wisely. This is the weirdest sounding, looking breakfast but wow this tastes like heaven. Ricotta with poached figs, candied almonds and honey. Breakfast manicotti, if you will. I take a picture of it.



The Nice New Yorker asks about my camera and I let her study it. And thus begins my series Nice New Yorkers. Who knew? This bakery is adorable, by the way. Falai Panetteria. For my general health, it's a good thing it's thousands of miles away.

11:10 My car (my CAR!) picks me up from the Lower East Side and I'm off to midtown to pick up Jen. I tell the driver 5 Ave of the Americas at Walker. Benecio Del Toro replies that it is not possible, or that the intersection no longer exists. I show him the piece of paper with the scribbled down address. I think he is saying that we cannot go that way, or that the only thing he fears is Keyser Soze. I'm not sure. He has the charming habit of asking a question that sounds like a statement and stating something that sounds like a question, and then sending the rest through a blender. Oh wait. He's saying "parade," as in look at the 3 million people jammed into the intersection to cheer on the Giants. Don't these people know we have to get to Fashion Week? He is starting to cut through my Zoloft happy haze. It's a minor miracle that we pick up Jen. We're off to Chelsea.





12:00

A blank, white loft. A sea of black, gray and studied nonchalance ebbs and flows against Freddie, the charming English listkeeper who has the thankless task of checking in the masses. We are handed thick letterpressed invitations that Freddie has scribbled on the back. It looks like a game of hangman. It's our seat assignments. Jen's in section F. I am "ST" for standing, according to the scribble. No prob. Who cares. I'm in.

12:05

Models walk through their final choreography, and by girls I mean upright antelopes with legs made of angelhair pasta. Strapped to their feet are gold studded six inch nasties that would make a hooker blanche. Much has been made of skinny models and BMIs and anorexia and seeing them in person, I want to cram them all inside an Olive Garden and padlock the entrance.

12:08

Backstage. Jen ambles off to check in with two of her artists working the show, so I ogle. The models are hidden in a swathe of hairspray, stylists and photographers. Karen Elson, a.k.a. Mrs. Jack White Stripes wiggles into a sleek pair of pants, her trademark red hair rolled into an artistic, extremely unflattering chignon. Did you mean to lose your eyebrows? I'll help you find them. Agyness Deyn whose bleached, cropped existence I learned of the day before, chats with Italian Vogue. I eat a doughnut.

12:15

I'm standing with Jen's cousin The Model and her jawdroppingly hot supermodel husband, a celebrity in his native Norway. Her dimples are something of a distraction. I think you could stick a straw in one and they'd stay put. How does a girl from MIssissippi get bone structure like that? They may be the nicest people I've ever met, and I find this patently unfair. I am told Anna Wintour is seated front row center, but I cannot see through the blockade of photograghers fighting to snap her picture. Ooh, there's Nina Garcia, fashion drector of Elle Magazine and resident bitch goddess of Project Runway. Oh, who am I kidding? That's Michael Kors role and sadly he's nowhere to be found. A woman, I'm guessing in her sixties, enters and causes a minor commotion. Short red bob, dead animals, tights, tartan. I am told she is the French Anna Wintour, and I am wondering how French women remain so chic if this is their arbiter of style. The woman looks like she was dressed by a blind, Scottish centaur. Hey, there's Vincent Gallo. Hey, there's Ryan Adams. Hey, that's a 50 pound camera slamming into my shoulder. The cameraman apologizes sincerely, putting the Nice New Yorker count for the day thus far to 4.

12:30

Showtime. Electric synth announces the girls arrival. It's not a tradtional "walk the runway" show as they are moving through a loft space. The girls are staggered and meet up two by two and kinda have a strut-off, and by strut I mean a wooden thump/clomp as they manage to propel those string cheese legs on towers of vinyl. Even the seasoned audience is wincing. But the choreography is pretty cool. The clothes are...interesting. Oh, but I like these pants. And ooh the gowns. The makeup is kind of alien blank, the hair pulled into buns with a geometric, black triangle spray painted in back. The models flood the stage, followed by the Rodarte girls who offer a brief curtsy before scurrying off stage. They were in a talon's length of French Vogue Lady, so I can't say I blame them.



12:45

Show's over. The masses exit into one stairwell - yelling FIRE! would be a very sick joke - and models from the show fight their way down the stairs. A 15 year old Russian girl rips pins from her hair while yelling WHUT THAM EES EET? Mr. Norway announces that it's 12:50 and flashes a smile. She melts into a little Russian Volta.


12:50

Backstage again. Jen's talking to Ryan Adams. Kim Gordon is talking to one of the Rodarte girls. Vincent Gallo is talking about himself.

12:55

Hey is that April from America's Next Top Model Cycle 3? Good for you, April! Is that Eliza Dushku? Is that really the entirety of my celebrity fix for the day?

12:56

We walk to lunch behind Agyness Deyn whose blonde spikes peek up above a dramatic, floor length red coat. She's like a postmodern Red Riding Hood.



1:15

A decent lunch of penne and prosciutto at Bettino with the Models' friends the Architect and the Artist. They are so insanely nice (NNY:6) and genuinely interested in me, my plans for my visit, the pics of Harlow I whip out every 5 minutes. When did I become such a mom?

3:30

Lower East Side. Jen and I score some major shopping deals. Is this a holiday? Or right, Happy Recession! $20 shoes! Skinny rocker jeans for 50% off!

5:30

A snack at the Pink Pony. Ah the French Onion soup, the beets, the accordion music. I just love Paris.

To be continued...