With special thanks to our nation’s pharmaceuticals industry.Photo: Getty Images
We’re often amazed at how easily we slip past the watchful guards at the Bryant Park tents — in flats, no less! But the first morning of Fashion Week was, as it is every year, a bit different from what we’ve come to expect during the rest of the week. First Lady Laura Bush was in the front row, surrounded by Secret Service, to attend the Red Dress show for her Heart Truth charity, which raises awareness of heart disease among women. As stars like Sara Ramirez, Molly Sims, Heidi Klum, Camryn Manheim, and Rita Moreno gleefully vamped down the runway, a journalist friend of ours cowered in the stands. She’d been seated directly behind Laura and daughter Barbara. “How much worker’s comp do I get if I’m shot?” she texted her editor. (We have to admit, we were more concerned with getting covered in spittle from Liza Minnelli’s runway performance of “New York, New York.”)
After the show, we tried to gain entry to the backstage W Hotel Lounge, which is where the celebs usually go to get pissed after the looking at the clothes. But naturally Laura’s goons were lying in wait to stop us at the door. At least we did witness them having a sense of humor, gleefully snatching up free umbrellas emblazoned with the word “undercover.” (Get it?) No word on whether they used them to shelter Mrs. B. on her rain-drenched walk back to the limo. —Jada Yuan
