They’re Barneys Windows to Their Souls
The late Diana Vreeland was such a colorful character during her reign as editor in chief of Vogue during the ‘60s that a one-woman show celebrating her wit and wisdom is running on Broadway.
While none of today’s fashion personalities have yet reached that legend-in-her-own-time status, a hardy group of editors and stylists attends more than 100 runway shows in Paris, Milan and New York twice a year. Exposure to one another’s quirks is inevitable, and from these details, gossip, if not legends, grow.
Barneys New York dedicated two windows in its Madison Avenue store here to Fashion Week, offering a tableau rife with “in” jokes that only some strollers-by will understand. (A few people with whom I’ve crossed paths over the years might wonder why my name is hanging on the back of a gilt chair.)
Titled “The Aftermath,” the display looks as if someone yelled, “Fire!” during a crowded fashion show and everyone headed for the exits, leaving water bottles, notebooks, crumpled show invitations and accessories. The only holdout is International Herald Tribune Fashion Editor Suzy Menkes, impersonated by a mannequin typing away on a laptop, as Menkes often does while waiting for a show to start.
On the chair designated for current Vogue Editor Anna Wintour hangs her trademark dark glasses. Allure editor Linda Wells, pregnant with her second baby, is remembered with a golden rattle. An “Annie” program rests on the seat of New York magazine Fashion Editor Jade Hobson Charnin, who’s married to the Broadway musical’s creator, Martin Charnin.
In an additional window dedicated to the models, a picture of Johnny Depp is tacked on Kate Moss’ vanity, and Naomi Campbell’s area is strewn with the junk food she’s known to favor. Colorful outfits from the Dries Van Noten spring collection draped on dress forms are a reminder of what the press gathers to see.
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“GORGEOUS***”: At most shows, the designers distribute a numbered list of models’ first names and a brief description of their outfits called a “Run of Show.” In another very good attempt at parody, the Run of Show from Isaac Mizrahi came complete with the sort of margin notes and sketches fashion editors typically make.
Little hearts and asterisks appeared next to favorite dresses, as if scrawled in felt-tip pen, along with reminders to confirm dinner reservations, call the makeup artist to find out “what was the lip?” and order a particularly luscious sweater to give as Christmas gifts. Mizrahi must have retrieved programs from the floor of past shows to get inside editors’ minds so deftly.
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Footnotes: Even the shoe buyer from a major department store confided that every woman to whom she mentions stiletto heels says, “I won’t wear them.” The towering, pointy-toed pumps that models have no choice but to wear on the runway are painful just to look at.
Calvin Klein offered some relief, modifying the heel of his shoes into a slender rectangle that’s much more substantial that the needle-like stilettos.
In other collections, slim straps were wrapped or tied around the ankle of high heels, and a number of designers, including Donatella Versace for Versus, offered what looked like a high-heeled boot-shoe hybrid.
Flats also made some appearances: Most of the D by DKNY collection featured round-toed scuffs--backless mules that were slightly more delicate versions of the wildly popular Hush Puppies mules now in stores.
