Sunday, February 1, 2009

It IS that easy!

So another example of dumb Kate Luck coming in handy again. I read on my fave fashion bloggo that it was Berlin fashion week, and there were galleries and shows all over town, so why not check it out? I put it in the category of "things I am doing to cultivate a taste in culture and stuff" and elected to go on Tuesday after school to one of the project galleries.
Berlin Fashion Week Components
1. galleries--
like a big closet where occasionally people would come out wearing some of the clothes while everyone else mills around pawing clothes on hangers on the sides...less a closet I suppose, than an actual store
2. buyer's galleries-- these are places where boutique owners and people who have money coming out of every orifice come to look at the new designers and maybe pick up their new lines...from what I understand these things reek of desperation and man-perfume
3. runway shows--these are what you think of when you think of fashion week, and I'll tell you, they last on average like 15 minutes but you wait in line forever to see them

Well, turns out this particular gallery was not particularly...umm...easy to get into. Apparently fashionable people don't like doors, so I went in the back, where there were a billion people in various states of "I'm wearing a potato sack." An androgynous Aussie-accented creature approached me and asked me in a rather annoyed voice "where are your credentials?!" I began to paw through my bag to find some form of ID, which was NOT FAST IN COMING, and she eventually just got mad and ushered me into the gallery where I stood VERY quietly with my moleskine (angelic noises here) writing with my serious face on. Well, this was an emergent artist gallery, so lot of people I didn't know wearing things that looked confusing (good news: black is still good! bad news: Gem Sweaters don't need gems to be cool anymore) and wandering around. Occasionally we would clap at something (there was this REALLY cool shirt that was woven of this tough material...kind of complicated to explain) and then the people who were supposed to be there would chat about how awful this or that was while I tried to be invisible/look like the member of the press they thought I was. The showing was blissfully short (thank the l-rd) and as I prepared to sneak out, someone handed me an invitation to this other showing. This invite:


Shi-SHAW!

became my press pass; I would stick it in my notebook and wander around, and when asked for a press pass, I was at small enough events that no one bothered to wait for me to pull out a lanyard. This basically went on for three of the fashion week nights (email me if you want my input on the de ruuk or the Finnish designers, but I didn't want to bore people), and once I got a little bit more gutsy and tried for a runway show put on by the Lala group. Getting into this one took more finess, since I had to time my arrival to be late enough that everyone was in a rush, but early enough to still get in, but not too early or I'd stick out. YOU SEE MY DILEMMA. I chose a good time, 5 minutes before the show, and I slunk in through the press entry with a pack of angry "I don't get a seat now!" types, and let me tell you, I didn't see much and it didn't last more than 20 minutes all in (upswing: they were TOTALLY playing MIA!). That having been said, it was really exciting, lots of people, and I felt like things were moving around me

I'll also tell you guys this: the reason crowd control and stuff like that works at fashion week here is not because it's so tight--maybe for the big shows and buyer's galleries--but because no one tries to go in. They follow the rules. If you're not supposed to be somewhere, you don't try. I'm here to tell you guys: TRY! I can't believe I got in to see pieces from the designers that I saw, but I did (one of the galleries had a shockingly awful quasi-batik Kors number which I'll go ahead and blame on one of his interns), and it worked.

Well, it worked until I got caught. See, when you go to buyers' galleries you're supposed to present the business card of the boutique you're buying for. I probably should have a business card (I have plenty of friends who do at my age), but I don't, so I did the whole "paw through your cavernous purse" thing again, but this lady was determined to wait me out to let me in, so that didn't go so well, and I kind of scampered off with a "oops" and after that I didn't show my face at fashion week events again. I guess I lost my nerve--it was also just after my German debate tournament (more on that later), so I was tired. Anyway, it was great, totally worth the nerves, and here are my top 5 most frequent observations during my gallery touring (in no particular order):
1. She shouldn't walk in those
2. I saw that on Project Runway once (Joe's awful little PhD hood on a tee shirt...I sh*t you not--he's laughing his straight butt off somewhere I tells ya)
3. What are those loops of fabric for?
4. That top is too___________
5. Wow, there's lots of orange in these galleries. That must be a hip color!

I know most of you aren't fashion types, so thank you for indulging me in this post. The next one will be its exact opposite I promise!

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