glitter panties on parade

Video: A Front-Row View of the Beginning and Ending of Fashion Week’s Most Fun Show

The Blonds’ Fashion Week show is unlike any other in New York. People cheer when awesome things come down the runway (as they do every season), last night’s crowd-pleaser being a mesmerizing suit made entirely of googley eyes. Most people in attendance don’t take themselves too seriously, and guests have a good time marveling at each other’s lack of panty lines (or panties) while they’re waiting for the show to start. It hardly matters how late the designers inevitably are, because audiences always know it will be worth the wait. See, this is a show before it is a fashion show.

The fall 2011 one began last night with a performance by Chinese lion dancers, who stuck their faces inches away from guests on the front row, a fur-clad Anna Dello Russo among them. Seems everyone in fashion really is thinking about China — only the lighthearted attitude of the Blonds doesn’t make it feel like some confused, cloying politicization. We were on the front row with our flip cam to capture the fabulous opening and closing numbers, including the final look modeled by Phillipe Blond that was so glittery, the stuff could be seen falling from him in thick showers as he walked. Not that his garment was any less sparkly because of it — this is the Blonds, after all.

Video: A Front-Row View of the Beginning and Ending of Fashion Week’s Most Fun Show