The virtues of staring

NEW YORK - I’m frumpy at Fashion Week. 

A 4 year-old brings this to my attention. Five minutes after I enter Bryant Park’s great white tent she sashays in front of me in silver high heels and white short shorts.  The back of her shorts are Bedazzled with one word: RICH. Her look is the mixture of boredom and disdain some women acquire only after multiple divorces.

Welcome to New York Fashion Week, a world of its own, complete with its unique customs, culture and — of course — costumes.  It’s a place where conventional wisdom is frequently stood on its head and — let’s get this over with right off the bat — you do look fat.  I do. She does. Everyone but a handful of Eastern European teenagers does, so please don’t bother even asking.

The big name runway shows are what everyone’s here for. Who wouldn’t clamor to enjoy a tightly choreographed performance piece in which impossibly attractive genetic mutations march down a runway in unthinkably expensive garments, somehow spending the GDPs of  several small countries in the time it takes to play two drum-and-bass songs, looking incredibly bored all the while?  No one cool, that’s who.

But before I glimpse a single beefy man thigh in Perry Ellis shorts, or ogle some artistic side-cleavage care of Sari Gueron, I take in a rather less rehearsed show in the purgatory of the main foyer. It’s here that one truly absorbs the people’s Fashion Week.

NBC VIDEO Fashion Week Backstage scenes and runway shows from Oscar de la Renta, Luca Luca. NBC Mobile

Mother always told me not to stare.  She also told me to always wear comfortable shoes which, when put into practice at Fashion Week, has resulted in people giving me quizzical looks, as if to say, “Poor thing, she’s clearly on her way to tech a high school musical and is terribly lost.” When I first flash my press pass and enter the main tent, I find that I can’t seem to avert my eyes from the many conversation pieces, bedazzled and otherwise, waltzing about the main promenade.

Slide show   On the catwalk See images from the designers' Spring 2007 collections.

For one thing, there is a fellow dressed in a UPS costume. I say costume and not uniform, for his getup seems to show a lot more leg than regulation.  While I suspect that this has something to do with UPS’s corporate sponsorship, it seems equally likely that he is lost on his way to a bacherlorette party, or an actual UPS man who — when delivering a package to the tent — defied company dress protocol like a naughty Catholic schoolgirl rolling up her skirt.

Another man, wearing a polka-dot hat and a shirt with vertical stripes in all the colors of the sherbet family, putters around outside the booth for the WE network.  His vigil is similar to that of a confused elderly person, patiently waiting for a train that hasn’t run on a set of tracks for years, as a sign from WE informs all comers that the coveted swag bags are gone, and there will be no more today.

MORE FROM FASHION WEEK

London avoids ultra-thin models — but no ban

London avoids ultra-thin models — but no ban Fashion week closes with big-name designers Glamour sweeps onto Fashion Week runways Fur is must-have item on the runways Designers dig into grandma’s closet   Images: Marc Jacobs, de la Renta, more Slimmed-down ‘chunky’ sweater look for fall   Images: Donna Karan, BCBG, more DKNY’s short, flirty skirts are trend-right   Images: Celebs line runway at Fashion Week   Add Fashion Week headlines to your news reader: