Business Women and Birkin Cookies: Taylore’s PFW Diary, Day Four

8:30 AM

I wake up to one of those Instagram alerts: “You’re not alone 🩷 Someone thinks you might need some extra support right now and asked us to help.” Someone is DRAGGING ME. Was my last diary really that depressing?

12:30 PM

On my way to Marisa Meltzer’s It Girl lunch at Sothebys to celebrate the launch of her new Jane Birkin book. I’m wearing my Norma Kamali pajamas, so I figure it’s a good opportunity for my first bike ride of the trip. “It is dangerous,” I think as the bike slows and a car almost hits me. Battery dead, my phone informs me. I park, power walk to the Metro in my vintage Yves Saint Laurents. “Am I on the right platform?” I ask a local, showing him my Google maps. “Oui, ici.” But actually non, I realize as the train doors are closing. 

1:02 PM

At Sotheby’s, a private viewing, people appraising lamps. Marisa reads a paragraph from her book about how Jane wasn’t concerned with luxury. Her Hermes bag was a vessel, not a status symbol, but today we are ladies who lunch. The topic of conversation? Business. I’m sandwiched between Laura Reilly and Becky Malinsky, the reigning queens of shoppable Substacks, smart market editors who branched out to make their own, albeit platform-mediated, businesses. Laura and I chat with Camille Charriere, a writer who tells me she’d prefer to work on her memoir than maintain her It girl status. Lunch ends, miniature Birkin bag cookies are served, and Camille and Laura run off to fittings. Big fashion still wants bloggers sitting pretty in the front row. 

2:30 PM

I refuse to rush today. I skip a show and a showroom appointment. I catch up on my emails. I ride the bus. I wonder whether it’s true that brands people can replicate via thrift store looks and otherwise (like Miu Miu and the new Versace) do better because they have a bigger cultural impact, but I don’t know what wealthy people like. I’m not a VIC. None of this is for me. The only luxury goods I buy are overpriced sunglasses. But then again, isn’t that what it’s all about? 

I liked some of the looks at JA’s Dior, the little poof skirts and the barely-there dresses and most importantly, the accessories. Who wouldn’t want those little Nina Christen crafted plaid shoes? The bedazzled bunnies? The new lady bucket bag that looks like luxury from the future. Like at Miu Miu, Anderson’s looks are a little off-kilter. The denim skirt with a zipper slightly askew, the peacoat bunched up in all the wrong places. But I don’t think Anderson’s designs are something you can do at home. It’s clothing for the elite on a five-star vacation. Aspirational and glamorous in an artistic way. 

3:30 PM

I say hi to Patti Wilson on our way into the ENFANTS RICHES DÉPRIMÉS venue. “That Rabanne show was something!,” she says in a way I can’t quite decipher. Outside, blondes in ballet shoes are seated, hunched over, hair blowing in the wind. Inside, an exhausted-looking Cobrasnake snaps my photo and we exchange classic fashion week pleasantries. “When did you get in? How late were you out last night? I’m sooooo tired,” etc. The theme of the day is exhaustion.

3:45 PM

Making a good fashion show is like making a film. You need the right set, the right cast, the right music, the right makeup and costumes. If you can do all that and present a unified collection with well-constructed clothing that’s true to your vision, congratulations, you did it! I consider this while I watch some kids headbanging in the second row while a bunch of freaky-looking guys in punk fits float down the runway. Is it for me? No. Is it good? Absolutely. 

4:30 PM

I work in a cafe, I visit a showroom, I drink champagne with the staff. I don’t have time to go home but I don’t have anything to do on this side of town either. I get fancy pizza. I drink espresso. I write more. I say hi to Davit Giorgadze at the opening of his new photo exhibition. I sit on my boss’s lap in the front row of a show and take a selfie with Paris Hilton. I drink an Isabel Marant-branded cocktail in the back of a car on the way to an event. 

10:00 PM

The Interview bus drops us off in the Bushwick of Paris. Naomi Fry is in town on a fashion assignment so Mel has brought her along for the ride. We enter the venue. A Campari activation. Endless spritzes and cigarettes. I’m awkwardly double-kissing people from New York, cornering smart critics like Charlie Porter, making small talk with girls I barely know. It’s already a fun show. 

10:59 PM

The runway is a movie, Real Housewives in deconstructed 1950s dresses, cardigans as hoods, plastic-covered handbags, hair with rollers falling out. An incredible soundtrack. The show ends and the PR shuffle us up to a greenroom where designers Bror August and Benjamin Barron are standing, holding flowers. I ask them about the show notes (check out the photo below) and they tell me they’re from Casa Susanna, a collective of trans women from the 1960s who collected clippings from newspapers and magazines on how to behave like a woman, how to walk like a model. “It’s a joyous collection,” I say, “You’re queering the tradwife.” Eyes roll.  

11:22 PM

Mel says I should stay for the afterparty. I drink a warm vodka soda, accidentally shade an important producer, and introduce myself to 100 different fashion people. “It’s like Instagram in real life,” the photographer Ben Taylor says. Not no. A musician tells me they’re embarrassed about getting dressed by brands. A girl tells me she doesn’t want [REDACTED] covering her wedding. Everyone is networking, smoking, saying they don’t care what shows they get into this season. Talking about how tired they are and how humble they’re being and what drugs they are taking to stay relaxed. A girl with a famous dad offers me a Klonopin. A cute gay guy offers me a line. “It’s not like that tonight,” a sober designer tells me. Everyone is revving up for the next portion of the party. I love dancing, but tonight I love sleeping more.