Shuttles were running between Union Station and the American Royal barbecue competition in the West Bottoms Friday night, and parking attendants were directing the long line of cars on Pershing Road out front. I rolled down my window, and someone came over.
"American Royal?" he said.
"No, Fashion Week party," I said.
He looked at me and then he looked at my car. The little door to my gas tank has been broken since sometime this past spring. Initially the problem was that the door wouldn't open, and I would have to pry it loose with a screwdriver. Then one day, I was too aggressive with the screwdriver, and I dislodged some part of it. Now it hangs off the side of my car, and people honk at me and point at it when I'm waiting at traffic lights. "Yeah, yeah," I say, nodding my head and waving them off. "I know, I know."
The parking attendant squinted at me and said, finally, "OK, right at the next light."
I made my way down to the lot, where another attendant informed me that it was $10 to park. "Sure," I said, handing over the cash. "I wasn't planning on eating dinner tonight, anyway."
Kansas City Fashion Week got under way last Thursday, October 3, and Friday night the festivities included stage shows for five designers, three of them local: Bridget Julia Couture, Katie Lee and House of Cochon. I will not be critiquing these shows, although my views on fashion have evolved over the years. My position formerly was that fashion is a stupid, empty enterprise driven by arbitrary trends and championed by people born without souls. But then I dated a fashion designer for many years, and I generally lightened up about things I don't understand. I can now acknowledge fashion's place as an art.
I really have only one fashion conviction, which is that a man should have a uniform. I wear more or less the same thing every day: brown shoes, jeans or corduroy pants, long-sleeve button-up. "Just because you're liberal politically doesn't mean you aren't an extremely conservative person," somebody once told me.
I attended Friday night's show for the people-watching, and the people-watching alone. I was not disappointed.
When I arrived, the publicist told me that she was still finalizing the seating but that she'd be sure to get me into the front row. I told her that wasn't necessary, that I was really just there for the party. She asked what it was about Fashion Week that I was interested in writing about. "I guess I just thought it'd be kind of funny to write about a fashion show," I said. "Because I don't really know anything about it."
"Oh," she said. "I know who you are. You're that guy at The Pitch who goes to parties where he doesn't belong and writes about them."
"That's fairly accurate," I said.
I set about doing what I do at these kinds of events: Wander around, try to blend in, fail, drink really fast, pretend to be interested in whatever handout they give you at the entrance, go to the restroom more than I need to. (Beautiful restroom facilities at Union Station, by the way.)
There was a long runway, maybe 75 feet, with rows of white seats, perhaps 500 in all, flanking each side. Before the shows started, a DJ with a hat that read "DOPE" in really large letters was perched in a Red Bull booth, jumping around and throwing his hands up to his own beats. There were at least five empty cans of Red Bull Sugarfree scattered in front of him.
"That's the editor of KC Magazine," somebody in the drink line said, pointing to a rich-looking woman whose name I now know is Katie Van Luchene. She must be, like, the Anna Wintour of KC fashion, I figure.
I settled into my third-row seat and made chitchat with a woman next to me. Her daughter, a KU student, was one of the models in Bridget Julia Couture's show. "She's actually switching her major from business to journalism," she said. I was getting ready to tell her what a terrible decision that was, but then she said something about broadcasters. Oh, right, I thought. Broadcast journalism. The kind where people make money. Her career path would not include a nose dive into the mud of print media. "That sounds cool," I said.
The show started, and the photographers in the crowd clustered near the end of the runway. Many in the front row sat with their legs crossed and their fists on their chins, deep in thought. Some had notepads, on which I assume they wrote things like "long dress," "short dress" and "funny hair."
My favorite designer of the evening was House of Cochon because its models wore the least in the way of clothing and had the most sass - lots of bikinis and blown kisses. There are some things that never go out of fashion.
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