Fashion Week officially starts today, but this year’s Red Dress show — an annual event meant to raise awareness about heart disease in women and what’s being done to prevent it — broke in the largest runway venue in Lincoln Center last night, with front-row personalities like Real Housewives of New York LuAnn de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan ready to fight for their own photo ops in addition to awareness. “You’ve got Johnny Weir and all of Bravo right down there,” an already beleaguered headset-wearing show organizer told a photographer whose befuddlement didn’t bode well for the rest of his fashion week shooting. The pre–Fashion Week mood was generally high, though; reporters happily chatted about how Matthew McConaughey — whose girlfriend, Camilla Alves, walked in the show — was said to have enjoyed perhaps a bit too much of wine sponsor Kim Crawford’s spoils. But it’s early yet.
But the Red Dress show, side-stepping the plague of pretension, is one of the most fun all year, the halftime to the main event that unites everyone in a smile. It’s flashy, it’s fun, it’s loud, it’s awkward, and it’s, frankly, a little drunk. Which can only mean: IT’S FASHION WEEK!!!!
