Fashion Week Fall 2011: The Scene
At Rag & Bone’s womenswear show in a nondescript Mercer St. building on Friday, attendees climbed a flight of stairs and emerged into one of those vast New York City spaces you see in movies—and during Fashion Week: The football-field-size, unfinished loft with brick walls, arches and big windows was truly a throwback to Soho’s glory days, complete with zero cell phone reception, leaving tweets unsent.
Alexa Chung said Rag & Bone was one of the few shows she’d be hitting, as she was off to London the next day to host the Elle Style Awards. How does she prepare? “Get drunk,” Chung joked.
Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter was excited, since Rag & Bone was her first-ever fashion show. She’s doing a play in New York, so her time is limited; she was disappointed to miss Proenza Schouler but expects to take in Rachel Roy and Catherine Malandrino.
Later on Friday, Tommy Hilfiger held his men’s show at the trendy The Lion, where the atmosphere is cozy and clubby, with zebra-skin rugs, book-lined shelves, and Warhol portraits on the walls. Hilfiger chose the venue because its “Old World charm with a modern twist” complements the clothes, he said. Ed Westwick, in a dapper plaid suit, said he would not be all over town during Fashion Week because of work obligations.
Photo: Patrick McMullan
Ed Westwick and Tommy Hilfger at the designer’s after-party.
Next the agenda was a party at Diet Pepsi’s Style Studio, a pop-up space on West Broadway with delightfully wacky window displays by Simon Doonan. We didn’t know what to expect, but the party—celebrating the company’s controversial new skinny cans—turned out to be a blast, with good food (lobster and bacon BLTs, Kobe beef burgers), great music, and a slew of celebrities, including Blake Lively, her Gossip Girl mom Kelly Rutherford, Brooke Shields, Gabrielle Union, Zac Posen, and Molly Sims.
On Saturday, we worked off the Diet Pepsi hangover running around backstage at G-Star’s celebrity-riddled show at the Lincoln Center tents. The objects of attention were Thor star Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky. The hunky Aussie and the Spanish actress are newlyweds, having married during the winter holidays. Besides established celebrities like Rosario Dawson, Alan Cumming, and Jared Leto, G-Star always invites the stars of racy new TV shows, and this season a bevy of the kids from the MTV sensation Skins faced the flashbulbs.
Sunday afternoon at Max Azria, black-clad Misshapes queen Leigh Lezark seemed slightly out of place sitting next to Sophia Bush, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Rose McGowan. But later, at Y-3’s edgy show, held downtown at that same atmospheric loft building on Mercer St. where we started our Fashion Week, Lezark seemed perfectly at home in the dimly lit, dusty-floored space.