The first part of our Saturday was all about checking in on the folks caught up in Friday’s crazy frenzy at Rebecca Minkoff: Anna Kendrick and Zosia Mamet. The short answer is that both of them survived with no visible scars, at least physically; the long one has us wondering about the effects of all those bright lights after all, as things eventually took a Thomas Jane–style turn for the bizarre.
We spied Kendrick first, braving the media alone in the front row of Jill Stuart. The truth is that she is as petite as you might imagine, to the point where even a smaller crush of photographers looms over her. Despite that — and the fact that we heard her say they were hemming her short blue dress on her body backstage — Kendrick seemed calm, if a tad delicate, such as when a massive set of lights turned on directly in her face while she tried to give an interview. She was also momentarily discombobulated when the staff cleared the runway and she turned to set something on her seat, then turned back and almost smacked her face against a wall of camera phones wielded by over-eager looky-loos. Even from the sidelines, that seemed a little intense. It’s to Kendrick’s credit that she dealt with it like a pro.
Across town at Rebecca Taylor’s show, we spied an extremely smiley Mamet waltzing in — almost literally, as she stopped dead on her way in to dance with Teen Vogue’s Andrew Bevan. She also brought the funk with photographers, with whom she clearly enjoys riffing. “All right, who’s on first?” she quipped, then playfully kidded with them about whether she should sit or stand. She is the one person we have seen who is consistently in a great mood at shows, which is why we were so bummed that she refused to do an interview with us. (Apparently — unlike almost everyone else at Fashion Week — all of hers are pre-approved.) “Oh, my gosh, I don’t talk to you guys. I’m SO sorry. IT’S NOT PERSONAL,” she insisted, sounding a lot like her alter ego (there is something very Shoshanna about talking to us so cheerily about how she wouldn’t talk to us). It’s too bad, because in the one interview she did do, we overheard Zosia saying that she started a band called Cha Cha. Since we can’t ask her ourselves what that’s all about, and are thus forced to guess, we leap to the obvious conclusions that it’s named after the character from Grease, primarily plays polka covers of Luther Vandross songs, and features a lemur playing the glockenspiel. This is the sort of rumor that gets out when you can’t go straight to the source.
But the oddest thing happened at the end of the show. When Rebecca Taylor herself came out, her bow was extremely brief; this meant that the models were still traversing the circuitous runway when Mamet lept out of her seat and scurried for the back door. Zosia froze for a second, eyes wide, shielding herself instinctively, then gathered herself and surged ahead through the line of models. It reminded us of the time Thomas Jane went to the bathroom during Hervé Leger and walked back via the runway, although in Mamet’s defense, she at least thought the show had ended. “Um, where is SHE going?” wondered the girl behind us. We don’t know if it was the cumulative effect of the camera flashes or just a fear of getting caught in a crowd — and we certainly can’t ask her — so let’s just say she was late for band practice. Cha Cha waits for no woman.
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