THURSDAY, SEPT. 12 — Thursday at last! There were two shows this day that held my interest, Calvin Klein Collection and Marc Jacobs. Thankfully for my Fashion Week coverage, I would be getting a piece of both.
As it turns out, Wilhelmina had two Calvin Klein exclusives in Cindy Bruna (above) and Carolina Sjøstrand (below). I was granted access to briefly shoot the pair backstage during hair and makeup. Guido and Pat McGrath’s teams were busily working to create the signature look for Calvin Klein Collection, on what was the tenth anniversary for Francisco Costa at the helm of the storied fashion house. It was great to see my former Calvin Klein colleagues in action behind the scenes at the new venue of Spring Studios at 50 Varick, but all the same I was happy to be holding a camera and not an iPad. Cindy and Carolina, for their parts, were thrilled to be Calvin exclusives, which is precisely the CV entry any model would like to earn en route to Europe.
That night I turned up at the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Avenue for the Marc Jacobs show. As I had suspected, set designer Stefan Beckman had been busy creating a masterpiece of a stage. At first glance the sweltering (and it was hot!) armory looked as if it had been transformed into a post-Sandy seaside hell. Rubbish littered the black sands runway. Outsize beach furniture was toppled. It was Boschian in scale. Once I heard the opening bars of the runway soundtrack, borrowed from the Academy Award-winning John Williams’ score for Jaws, I realized something else was at work. The models hurriedly walked the runway to this soundtrack, giving the run of show a frenetic pace — think Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The whole thing for me was then a sort of Jaws–Psycho mash up.
Sojourner Morrell (below) was cast in the show, which was a blessing. I am a big fan of this model and was more than happy to train my coverage on her. Makeup by François Nars transformed Sojourner’s already captivating eyes into something truly mesmerizing. I had plenty of time also to shoot her in first looks before the show, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. sharp. First looks were called at 7 p.m., a full hour before show time. The models were all dressed and lined up with 30 minutes to spare. Given the designer’s checkered past with show times it was impressive to see such militaristic commitment to an on-time start.
There were no first-looks photographers backstage, which has been a policy implemented by the house in recent seasons. The result is a significantly more relaxed backstage, where the designer himself was able to move freely up and down the line to personally inspect every single look on the models. It was a sight to behold, one that would not be otherwise possible with a scrum of photographers fighting for shots.
I left backstage at about 10 minutes to showtime and went to front-of-house. I hung out by one of two photo risers and when the announcer indicated the show would begin in one minute, I counted another 30 seconds on my wristwatch before claiming an empty front row seat opposite the photo riser. The seat not only afforded me a brilliant view, but also had me photo bombing dozens and dozens of shots taken of the runway — search #marcjacobs on Instsgram for a tall white guy with ridiculously good posture wearing all-black. J. Mendel and now Marc Jacobs have whet my appetite for all that front row offers. More on this as it develops.
That is it for New York Fashion Week, but not to worry or to worry (whichever), I will spend a week in Paris covering the shows. Until then, thanks for reading.
