Interview

Save it for another diary.

I last left you in the middle of fashion week New York, but let me fast-forward to the present. I'm in Europe on the fashion trail, so let me kvetch and moan for a few minutes about life and fashion shows. When I tell people I'm off to Paris and Milan for the shows they may appear jealous, as if I were going to the Seychelles with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cast. Now I'm not saying it's more like shipping off to Afghanistan, but try going to 29 fashion shows in Milan in four and a half days, not to mention about the same number of appointments and presentations (hard core merchandise briefings—notice this zipper—or fashion shows where the models just stand there.)  You've got to be tough, together, and in-shape for this stuff. You've got to be able to get by on five hours a night. You've got to be able to hold your prosecco. You've got to be able to smile when the advertiser who took out a single page complains that they only got five fashion credits.

Milan isn't Paris or New York. It does have the advantage of being in Italy, which means that you can get a good cup of coffee, but Milan tends to bring out the worst in Italians: attitude, Nineteenth Century electronic services, and hotels that think you are lucky to be staying there.  The food is probably the worst anywhere in Italy-where else will you get pasta drenched in iffy olive oil or Bolognese that looks and tastes like it came out of a can or carpaccio that looks like an uncooked Philly cheese steak.

The Milanese are sophisticated and can be lovely, but the odds are against them in Milan Fashion Week because they cram everything that happens in New York in a week or in Paris in ten days into four and a half days. Supposedly this is because Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, told the Camera (that's the group that organizes the shows there, like the CFDA in New York or the Chambre Syndicale in Paris,) that their fashion week was simply too long and they'd better shorten it. Is it true? Probably. If there is a queen in this women's world it is Ms. Wintour. Nobody else could have told them that their city was intolerable for a whole week, and I'm sure she didn't put it in words like that, but however this abbreviation occurred, it's probably for the best. For me it means it's more likely that my kid will still recognize me when I return, but those non-stop Milan days leave very little time for eating, sleeping or human life in general.