Mallis and Bill Cuningham.Photo: Getty Images
Fern Mallis, Fashion Week’s Mayor Bloomberg, wants you to know that you don’t have to choose between fashion and football on Sunday. “Oh, we’re going to be live-streaming throughout the tent,” she told us at the W Hotel lounge backstage after the BCBG Max Azria show. Mallis herself plans to join all those poor souls at the Miss Sixty show as a ready and willing Super Bowl–viewing companion. “I’ll be working,” she said, “but I am a big Giants fan. Come on! They’re from New York.” She hasn’t yet given the executive order to set up a buffet with Buffalo wings and onion rings, but she didn’t balk at the idea, either. “We’ve had sporting events go on during Fashion Week before,” she said. “The Super Bowl is always at the same time as us and last time I think we had a lounge, with pizza.” Super Tuesday is a different matter, though. Mallis says there will be no reprieve to allow editors time to vote. “It’s not my reprieve to give,” she said. “I don’t employ them.” She is worried that the inevitable Giants ticker-tape parade will block routes to polling places — and the tents. But she’s determined to find a way to vote herself. For whom she would not say, except to reiterate that although Laura Bush thanked her in her speech at the Heart Truth Red Dress show yesterday morning, “those aren’t my politics.” And as her final act of benevolent fashion dictatorship that day, Mallis even granted unofficial amnesty to anyone who skipped out on yesterday’s off-site shows like Rag & Bone and Baby Phat during the deluge. “I’m not going,” she scoffed when we told her our plans to attend both. “In this weather? Are you kidding me? I’m staying on campus.” —Jada Yuan
