Thursday, 10 March 2011

Confessions of a Tag-A-Long

The evening at which I painfully realised that fashion was actually not my cut of the cloth, by Lauren De’Ath.

What people need to firstly understand is that I like clothes; aesthetically and visually they give me great pleasure: the drape of an expensive silk; the lustre of a piled velvet. Je les adore! Fashion on the other hand is an entirely other box of tricks- I find the whole mutable industry hysterical. I worked at a Fashion Week once- hysterical; I interned at Vogue- hysterical! But I kept asking myself: what was next rung of adventure on my sartorial ladder?

The answer came at about 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon over free drinks at The Hoxton Pony, a friend who had worked for Jonathon Saunders for all tally of a week and claim to Saunders fame was having sewn a single button to his Spring/Summer collection, had managed to accrue two tickets to the after show party. With London Fashion Week already fast disappearing into the retrospect of 2009 I jumped at the chance to schmooze with the proverbial cream cakes of the fashion world. (And, of course, be mildly amused by the whole thing).

NW1 didn’t stand a chance, I thought; wearing ripped tights (no fashion statement intended) and an ill-fitting ruchéd velvet dress I descended, the ever sceptical scenster, into the London underground for Marylebone. The Osnaburgh Terrace, a grand white pillared building, was Saunders’ statuesque venue de choix and hosts Relative PR had gone to great lengths (and heights) to ensure the walls, flagstone stairwell and several ominous, random glass counters were sufficiently adorned with white orchids and flickering candles- the whole thing was highly atmospheric. Waitresses floated about with trays of attractive, and more significantly free, cocktails and flitted past very occasionally with small but delectable dishes of food; refined versions of British classics from what I could tell, mini roast beef with bird egg-sized potatoes and so on.

Wallowing in glorious pretension I turned to see Jodie Harsh and her giant blonde weave enter the room only to then sashay away, hair towering over all else. Whilst my friend was talking Saunders with her fellow interns I retired to the sidelines to people watch, a far more satisfying activity than attempting to engage in chit-chat; something I am self-confessedly crap at. O, there’s Lulu Kennedy in white PVC! Clever. Ah, and there’s performance artist Theo Adams, aka The-O... I prefer him in drag. O and there’s Roksanda Ilincic and Richard Nicoll, how I love them! I was forced abruptly back down the earth soon after,however- someone was trying to make conversation. Damn. So, what did I do? I wrote. Did I work for Jon? O no, I’m a social leech, I’m with Lucy. Did I see the show? No, unfortunately, I was getting drunk in Shoreditch courtesy of a darling French barman. Several painful moments later, said raconteur with clumpy mascara was sufficiently full to vomitation from my verbal diarrhoea and sort of wandered away, perplexed. I am hideously awkward sometimes.

My next call of duty was to investigate the dance floor. The DJs from Ponystep were playing and apparently this is impressive in these circles... Everyone under the age of 25 and with a social life knows better, me thinks. Outside of their usual clique, however, the boys were spinning at their very best and on a dance floor filled predominantly with interns, we all danced to painfully cool electro dub-step, Lady GaGa and I’m quite sure, if my then Martini-soaked memory will allow; Britney Spears (can you have set without Britney, bitch, these days)? Thankfully not. We partied into the night, shoes were removed, drinks downed, shapes were thrown; but no-one fell and no-one was secretly sick in the corner because Fashion is pristine. The only controversy, mild as it was, was Vogue’s Fashion Editor, Harriet Quick, smoking on the dancefloor. Yes, that’s smoking indoors.

We rested off our foot-ache on leather sofas, next to a fabulously elegant set of drag queens in 1940s garb. A photographer darted about like a crack of tiny thunder, immortalsing the young, old, beautiful and remarkable things of fashion; and we just sat and watched it happen. Apparently Victoria Beckham designed all of her own collection; is really involved in the process; knows her dart from her seam and all that; better than that Moss for Topshop. The barman put petals and a spritz of perfume in the drinks. The Ladies were full of men. Are gladiator sandals really in fashion? Strangely, there was a little girl running around...

With a smoking area full of trannies; a dancefloor full of smokers and a liver full of, what was maybe gin, by midnight I was desperate for a change of scenery. Procuring two more free alcoholic gems from the bar I suddenly decided I didn’t want to drink anymore; poured my drink out the window, leaned out as far as I could to see where it had landed (hopefully not on Harsh’s expensive fake hair) and then returned to dissuade my friend from indoor-smoking à la The Quick with a stern, “You are not Jonathon Saunders and you do not work for Vogue!” All around us the room was clearing as the final chords of Joy Division faded into the night, the lights were turned on and the party, it seemed, was over. Out on the street it was back to reality, back to KFC and back to the N15 bus home and with my heels stowed safely away in my bag for my “reality” flats, I returned home to lie on my floor and muse over my first ‘fashion party’.

And what of the moral of the story, dear reader? Well, alcohol is not the answer, that’s for sure.

-Pegasus magazine, 2009-

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