Once the excitement was over with I decided to get real with myself. I probably won’t sleep for an entire week, the crap liquid they call coffee won’t help my exhaustion and I may end up hating fashion for the rest of my life. So I guess you could say I knew what was at stake.
That’s the first thing I misjudged. I still love fashion and I’m sad that New York Fashion Week has come to end. However, my feelings toward American coffee remains the same.
The second biggest shock to me was that the designer I was working with did not resemble Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (Hallelujah!).
Photo: supplied
On my first day of interning with one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most renowned designers Karen Walker, I was expecting to end my day with a slice of NYC’s famous $1 gigantic pizza slice in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. But, to my surprise, I went back to my hotel room sober as a nun with a smile on my face that you could probably see from the Empire State Building.
Photo: Supplied
The show took six days to prepare for, from model castings, garment fittings and dozens of coffee runs to the hair-pulling process the stylist, Kathryn Neale, went through to create the final runway looks.
The mornings were bright and early and the preparation often ran into the night, but when we weren’t running around like the 2007 version of Britney Spears, we were star searching outside fashion shows and somehow managing to end up at the hottest after-parties (thanks Givenchy).
Kimye, Kylie Jenner, Tyga, Lady Gaga, Jessica Alba, Kelly Osbourne, Zanita Whittington, The Man Repeller, Solange Knowles, Alexa Chung, Toast the Dog and, my personal favourite, The Fat Jewish were among the list of celebrities and socialites we got to meet and even party with.
Photo: Supplied
This brings me to my third biggest shock. They actually don’t mind having a conversation with you (well, most of them).
Photo: Supplied
New York Fashion Week was not as glamorous as I thought it would be. ‘Sports-luxe’ and ‘casual-chic’ made plenty of appearances at this season’s Fashion Week. From Phillip Lim dresses teamed with Adidas sneakers, to Lady Gaga’s denim shorts she rocked at the Alexander Wang show, to Kelly Osbourne’s fur clutch we saw at the Idan Cohen show (or was that a Pomeranian?), no two looks were the same.
The designers didn’t kill me, the socialites didn’t flip my food tray onto me and the celebrities didn’t laugh in my face, so I guess you could say overall I am a survivor of NYFW Spring 2016 and I will never forget how a small-time girl from Australia shared the same air as so many influential people in what truly was the week of lifetime.
