Well, make that three lessons. Some work experience this summer landed me with a few hot tickets to London Fashion Week, and more specifically: to the inside of the tents. It was amazing. I dressed like only people going to fashion week do (ie. I looked out of place on the bus), BBM’d on my blackberry while I sat before the shows started, and did a lot of standing and looking at stylish things with a pout. It was a learning curve, really. Here are three things I know now that I didn’t know before last weekend:
It’s fast, and not in the way you’re probably thinking. The shows themselves are quick as lightning – you manage to get in right before they start (if you’re me), they last two seconds, and the second they’re done, people leave. Like, the very second they’re done. It’s because we all have tickets to shows across town right after, dahling, and we really don’t want to stay and chat. No one does. I swear at one of the shows a model was running faster to get out of the door than I was.
People are furious, at everything. At waiting, at standing, at each other. I think one person smiled at me the entire time. But furious people have wonderful expressions, and do seem to look more fashionable when they’re angry…and they’re mostly hungry, probably. So maybe I’ll change that to fierce – people were fierce.
Street style isn’t spontaneous, which I guess everyone knew already, but I didn’t. There were loads of orchestrated shoots while we waited to go into venues – people pulled out of lines to stand on attractive streets, hold their accessories in a certain way, to pose. And those who were photographed knew they were going to be, too, because they looked amazing. “Am I trying too hard? Do I look like I’m too ‘fashion’?” Asked a girl behind me to her friend as we waited in line for Rocha. “You do,” said her friend, “We all do.”
