Fashion’s Front-Row Show
Sofia Vergara may not be well known now, but the buxom 28-year-old Colombian actress is headed for Manhattan to become a gossip-column item. Her ticket? A front-row seat at the hottest runway shows during New York’s fashion week.
Her escort will be the bereted Phillip Bloch, a stylist to the stars who is paid to connect celebrity clients with high-profile designers. He’s arranged the best for Vergara, a former model who hosted a show on Univision for four years. “We have a saying in my office,” Bloch said. “No front row, we don’t go.”
The duo will drop by the Sean John show “because it’s cool,” BCBG and Donna Karan “because they’re generous and like to dress celebs,” and Badgley Mischka “because you never know when you’re going to need a beaded gown,” Bloch said.
In this era of fame-driven fashion, getting to know designers can lead to free gowns and other gifts. So celebrities (even low-wattage ones such as Vergara) jockey for front-row seats at the invitation-only shows, which began Thursday.
Until the last few years, the shows, held biannually in New York--nearly 150 of them in total--were tradition-bound affairs. The front row was the turf of an elite group of a hundred or so magazine editors, store buyers and socialites.
The runway shows have evolved into almost performance art with DJs, dancers, films and often incredible special effects. Now the guest list reads more like a who’s who of film, music and television because designers have discovered how valuable it can be to have celebrities at their shows. Crowding into the front row too are stylists such as Bloch, Jessica Pasteur and L’Wren Scott, power brokers between Hollywood and Seventh Avenue.
Celebs crave media exposure that appears less contrived than predictable new-movie and -album junkets. Vergara, for example, will get to meet a slew of fashion and other editors, thanks to Bloch. “She’ll probably end up on [the New York Post’s] Page 6,” he said.
For designers, a star connection can lead to a windfall of publicity in mass magazines, such as InStyle or People, and on E! Entertainment Television. Many woo celebs to their shows, sometimes even offering free flights, hotel stays and wardrobes.
“It’s basically a major bribe,” said Mauricio Padilha, owner of MAO Public Relations, which is producing several shows this season. He, like other New York designer reps, is understandably reluctant to provide details.
For some, courting stars is deemed good for business. In past seasons in Europe, Chanel bankrolled a Concorde trip for Julianne Moore to fly to Paris for a show. Giorgio Armani flew Ricky Martin to sit in his front row, and Donatella Versace paid Salma Hayek’s travel expenses to ensure she would be runway-side.
Other designers stop short of paying celeb travel expenses, choosing to gift them instead. Women’s wear fashion house Luca Luca, for example, sent cashmere sweaters with its show invitations to “friends and family,” including Mary J. Blige, who wore the line during the Super Bowl halftime show last month.
The sweaters are not bribes, but thank-yous, said public relations director Sia Shin. “We love for people to be wearing Luca Luca to our show, kind of like fans wear team colors to a sporting event.” But the fashion house would never send things to people who didn’t already have Luca Luca in their closet, she added.
Once guests are secured, the politics of seating can make Washington’s look like child’s play. To accommodate the swell of VIPs, designers have taken to creating serpentine arrangements to lengthen their front rows.
Those invited to this season’s hottest ticket--Saturday’s Sean John show--run the gamut from Kennedy family members to singer D’Angelo to the cast of “Saturday Night Live” to Katie Couric, so deciding which 110 will get to sit in the front row is tricky.
“There will definitely be celebs in the second, third and even fourth rows,” said Hampton Carney of Paul Wilmot Communications, who is handling the seating.
Some stars will no doubt throw attitude, he said, but when rock group Stone Temple Pilots wound up in the third row at the last Sean John show, “they were so cool about it.”
After a seating chart is devised, organizers still have to be ready for last-minute guests. When Howard Stern showed up uninvited to last season’s Luca Luca show, “there was a lot of shuffling,” Shin said. “We have chairs that materialize that can be shoved at the end of rows, or squeezed in between others. . . . We haven’t had people sit on laps yet.”
Ultimately, the shows are supposed to be about what’s on the runway, not who’s sitting on the sidelines. “At the end of the day, what sells clothes is the critical evaluation,” said a publicist who asked not to be named. “You run the risk of irritating an editor when their fashion director is in the second row to make room for Foxy Brown, who’s not that big of a deal.”
Vogue’s Anna Wintour always gets as many front-row seats as she requests. But “as you go down the masthead, you go back in rows,” Carney said. Another cardinal rule? Wintour cannot be seated anywhere near Vogue-defector-turned-Harper’s Bazaar-editor Kate Betts.
“Interview [magazine] makes a good buffer,” he said.
Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure magazine, said the front-row scene now is like a cocktail party. “It’s a mix of Hollywood celebs and local celebs, which could be someone who is in a play or a socialite, which passes for a celeb in New York. There are also always some people who are more infamous than famous--Monica Lewinsky or Shoshanna Lonstein, for example.”
If there is too much star power in the front row, the clothes risk getting lost in the Hollywood shuffle.
Although each designer’s runway presentation lasts no more than 20 minutes, shows routinely start late. The half an hour or so when the audience is waiting for the lights to go down is an invaluable front-row media blitz. It’s easy to recognize where someone famous is sitting, because he or she will be surrounded by a gaggle of TV crews from E!, “Entertainment Tonight” and “Access Hollywood.”
A few designers have learned that such distractions may not be worth it.
Peter Som invited Tina Louise to his show last season, and the former “Gilligan’s Island” actress caused a major ruckus with photographers because her appearance followed on the heels of a dishy TV profile aired the week before. Som’s fashion show was delayed 20 minutes as a result. He hasn’t invited any celebs to his Wednesday show.
Padilha, who is producing Som’s show, said the designer felt that the media coverage talked more about his celebrity guests than his clothing.
“This season, we’ve been shying away from inviting celebs, and still we’ve got more celeb RSVPs than ever before. Mary J. Blige wants to come to all eight shows we are producing; Tori Spelling wants to come to three of them. And it’s funny because they weren’t invited,” Padilha said. “In the past we’ve had to beg them. Now, this season, they keep calling us.”
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Musical Chairs
A look at who’s who and why they might be around during New York’s fashion week.
Movie Star
* Nicole Kidman (to prove there is life after Tom)
* Renee Zellweger (still high on her Golden Globe)
* Kate Hudson (Oscar campaigning)
* “Hannibal’s” Julianne Moore (reportedly a freebie cannibal)
The Rock/Rap Star
* Destiny’s Child (Beyonce Knowles’ mom is a fashion designer)
* Foxy Brown and Courtney Love (their careers could use a boost)
* Nelly and Mary J. Blige (riding the publicity train from the Super Bowl halftime show)
Heiresses
* Aerin Lauder (she’s tight with Oscar de la Renta and Michael Kors)
* Paris and Nicky Hilton (they wish they were)
* Sofia Coppola (where isn’t she?)
* Anna Nicole Smith (she’s got the money to be anywhere she wants)
Media Mavens
* Anna Wintour and Kate Betts (on opposite sides of the runway)
* Bigwigs at E! Networks (they were the first to snap up the rights to broadcast the New York shows)
* Elsa Klensch (singing her swan song before she leaves CNN)
Wild Cards
* Talking heads Howard Stern, Regis Philbin and Bryant Gumbel
* VIP Pamela Anderson and other former centerfolds
* Cast members from “Survivor” or “Temptation Island”
* Benicio Del Toro (he’s everywhere)
