new york fugging city

Stars Skip Sunbonnets, Ruffled Diapers


From left, Karen Walker, Karen Walker, Benjamin Cho.Photographs by FirstView

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in our two days of roaming Bryant Park, it’s that there is no such thing as “Hurry up, the show starts in 30 seconds.”

Our evening began with a 6 p.m. Karen Walker show, her first-ever U.S. presentation. Now, when neither of you is a local and one of you was born without a sense of direction, it’s best if the other is not terribly trusting. Sadly, that’s not the case. The disoriented one (Heather) led the trusting one (Jessica) four blocks in the wrong direction. Note to selves: OUCH. Do NOT be tardy in wedges. By the time we hotfooted it back across town, our feet were swollen, it was 6:05 p.m., and we were stressing about being too late.

Naturally, after all that, we ended up being the first people in our seats. Second note to selves: Do not worry about being tardy quite so much. And don’t blame the wedges. It’s not right to fight with them.

We did, however, have some issues with Ms. Walker. Do we really want to see America’s starlets trotting around Tinseltown in nylon sunbonnets? Look, we all love watching Half-Pint run down the hill with her braids flying behind her, but this is not the prairie and we are not owners of a little house. And, just as vitally, we do not need to wear floral-print onesies that conclude in the equivalent of a skimpy ruffled diaper. We’re concerned Lindsay Lohan might catch wind of this trend, and God knows she’s overexposed enough already.

Our celebrity-spotting efforts came up dry at Karen Walker, but the Benjamin Cho show more than compensated with an appearance by actress and fashionista Chloë Sevigny. Dashing our high expectations for her usual insane getups, Chloë looked fantastic in a tight black number with slits all the way down the front and hot black wedges. All we can do is pray for a downhill slide later in the week.

The Cho event itself, held in an empty flat on the 80th floor of the Trump World Tower, was chock-full of oddball fashions and funky attendees like Jay McCarroll, booted Project Runway contestant Alison Kelly, and Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha. We were rather startled when a lone male model walked the makeshift runway in bright-red lipstick, a shirt with a massive heart cut out of the front, a headband, and the most painfully awkward bad-young-actor expression since Andrew Shue moved into Melrose Place. The crowd giggled as he charged forehead first through the room, then desperately tried to regain its collective air of detached cool.

It was a nice moment of levity in an otherwise pretentious show, proving that fashionistas really are just like us: They, too, think dudes in headbands are funny.

The Fug Girls

Browse Karen Walker’s new collection.

Browse Benjamin Cho’s new collection.

Stars Skip Sunbonnets, Ruffled Diapers