“Kinda Nasty. Kinda Unsettling. Kinda Good?”: Taylore’s PFW Diary

Our senior editor Taylore Scarabelli takes us behind the scenes at days one and two of Paris Fashion Week.

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11:20 AM

I just woke up from a Xanax-induced red-eye slumber. Economy-chic. The man next to me is blowing his nose. His mucus is never-ending and I’m beginning to fear for my future. So much snottiness and I haven’t even made it to Paris yet. 

11:50 AM

CDG on the first day of Paris Fashion Week is a show in itself. You can spot the editors, stylists, PR girls, and influencers from a gate away. Their shiny chrome suitcases, their perfectly cocooned trench coats, their tastefully distressed jeans and bright orange iPhone 17s. The insecurity is palpable. These people planned their airplane outfits carefully. I, on the other hand, threw a bunch of shit into a giant suitcase and it shows.

12:55 PM

I arrive in the 19th at the exact same time as my friend who’s just flown into a different airport. We unpack, take turns showering, listen to a Madonna mix. I feel disgusting and tired. The MOXI laser treatment the derm promised me would be healed by Monday is only just now starting to flake. Perfect timing. Even my half-baked outfit is all wrong. Jet lag is bad but a shitty attitude is worse so I’m trying to stay positive. It’s only the first day of shows. 

3:30 PM

We run into Nhu Duong  and her baby outside of Hodakova. “The i-D cover star!,” David Siwicki, PR to some of the cooler Paris indie brands reminds me. The baby smiles and burrows into her mothers chest. Shy. Famous. Better behaved than most coddled cover stars I’ve interacted with. 

4:02 PM

I’ve already decided that Hodakova is cool because cool people I know seem to think so, but I’m trying to decipher the concept of this show. There’s a thatched roof (literally), a dress made of floppy beach hats, a dress made of mitts, a series of vintage Norwegian sweaters (some crafted into beautiful boxy mini dresses). Is this show about a colonizer on vacation? A few sticks fall from the roof. Insta-fodder. Success.

4:35 PM

I arrive at Fidan Novrasova in a fugue state. Pillbox hats, feminine takes on trenches, some with peplums, others with drop waists, all with little capes that billow behind the models as they pump. These are wearable clothes with Gen Z appeal, but what of the square-toed boots the brand is famous for? More of the same. I would have liked to see some variations on the design. You shouldn’t abandon your hits, but you can always build on them. 

5:44 PM

Dara and I ride the metro and gossip about Milan. I haven’t eaten a single thing all day so we stop at a shitty cafe and dial into our edit meeting in New York. My salmon fume arrives mid-call and is topped with the saddest pile of lettuce I’ve ever seen. Brown, wilted, dirty. Kind of my vibe right now. The jet lag is hitting. Dara tells me there’s something on my nose. The great peeling is upon us. 

6:30 PM

At Vaquera I spot Ryan Aguilar and we talk Big Apple fashion. He and Michel Gaubert made the soundtrack for this very New York show. Pop and rap sped up and deconstructed, an elevated runway, a spotlight tracking models with swagger rarely seen anymore. “We moved to Paris this summer – iconically the center of good taste,” the show notes read. “But what does that mean?” The answer? ’80s party dresses sliced in half, a t-shirt silk screened with headphones, and a sample of the brand’s new Comme Des Garcons perfume. Notes of cologne samples from magazines (the kind you peel and sniff) with something animalistic underneath. Kinda nasty. Kinda unsettling. Kinda good?

7:28 PM

A few New Yorkers book a dinner at a very classic French spot and a few more of us crash it. We order everything on the menu. Chanterelles, morels, escargot, chicken, salmon, pate, five kinds of souffle, a baked Alaska. It’s sick to say but eating this much and this early on the first night of fashion week feels like a privilege.

9:20 PM

Off to Laura Andrashko at Rasputin, a small red club that smells like musty cigarettes. I’m two glasses of wine deep and happy to run into more friends and coworkers. I don’t even mind that the show is so Las Vegas. A poker chip gown, toes reaching over high-heeled wedges. Julia Hobbes on the runway. Bets were made but unfortunately, no jackpot. 

10:00 PM

I follow some New Yorkers onto the metro and we end up at the Vaquera afters. A makeup artist buys me a vodka soda, a woman tells me I can’t drink outside. “What city is this?” I whine while my friend eats some spring rolls he waited 30 minutes for. Us fashion people are so hard done by.

11:30PM

I’m in an Uber to the secret Duran Lantink party with some friends. I don’t rave while I’m working or whatever that judicious editor said to me when I mentioned the event earlier. I’m just here for the story. At the club, my friend spies a guy he wants to fuck getting physical with someone else. We circle the party, pretend to dance, admire the cages they built to take drugs in. My friend gets a kiss goodnight. We all got what we came for. 

DAY 2

8:00 AM

I slept, sort of? Maybe I shouldn’t have had that vodka soda. My roommate is leaving for a meeting and I run downstairs with him. I get a croissant and an orange juice and a cappuccino that turns out to be a mocha and also the solution to all of my problems. I call Mel for his Saint Laurent review and some other off-the-record shit talking. 

1:02 PM

I’m tired and I want to be cozy today which means I’m wearing high-waisted MEL jeans and vintage three inch-tall Yves Saint Laurent heels. I fumble trying to escape the apartment complex and a French lady laughs at me. I start my hobble to the train. Today is going to be totally fine. 

1:30 PM 

I arrive at Place Vendome. FKA Twigs is posing with the Drag Syndrome queens. She’s wearing over ear headphones and a shirt with a scary face on it that reads UNCENSORED. Moments later, Nicola Formichetti pulls up with a boy in a doll mask with a miniature doll version of himself perched on his head. Is a metaphor for all the self-involved showgoers? Even insecurity is a form of conceit. More people in straggly wigs and white-out contacts and shoes that are two feet tall. We’re here for the Matieres Fecales show. 

2:24 PM 

A soft matching pink sweater and skirt set with outrageous alien-like shoulder pads. Some very well-constructed lace gowns reminiscent of McQueen, a sincere hoodie that says “NEVER CONFORM” that I would love to wear as a joke. I could do without the denim, but the casting is incredible. Everyone’s titillated by the masked topless person in a corset with a rose peeking out of their genital region but I’m more entranced by the tights hanging off of the body, the blackout contacts, the big woman in a big, big gown. This show is for the misfits and the misfits look FANTASTIC. 

2:52 PM

Mel and Julian and I walk into the Versace re-see and I’m embarrassingly elated. Dario’s debut may have been controversial but as a Miu Miu girl obsessed with ’80s style, it’s all I want and more: backless dresses with elasticated logo-adorned briefs peeking out from behind, big BIG shoulders on everything from eveningwear to patchwork leather, brightly colored jeans and neutral handbands, big ass jewelry, impeccable styling, short shorts. Not to mention the delicious showroom set design replete with vintage-style mannequins in outrageous poses (custom made for the occasion). I love Donatella but I’m also gays girl. 

3:30 PM 

Mel needs fruit but the first stand we pass isn’t major enough (editors!). We end up with blueberries all over the floor, silly sweet relief before we drop the boss off at Dries and Julian and I venture off across the river to find something cheap to eat. Sandwiches at a tourist trap. “The first nice Parisians I’ve interacted with,” Julian tells me. Suddenly my mood shifts. I’m beefing with everyone in my mind. Jet leg, panic, insecurity again. I need my computer. I need to get to the next show. I need to sleep tonight or I’ll literally die. 

6:15 PM

There are about a thousand people swarming La Carreau du Temple ahead of the Courreges show. According to the signs, they’re here for K-pop cutie Wooyoung but when Kim Petras steps out of her Mercedes Benz in a tiny black dress they go wild. On the celebrity side of the barricades, I get a glimpse of what it would be like to be famous. Not bad. 

7:11PM

The bench beneath me is vibrating with the music as if I’m in one of those experiential movie theaters. “It’s 34 degrees in Paris, the sun is rising,” a voice bellows behind the booming base. Some of the models faces are obfuscated by mesh, others by the brand’s brand new shades that were also gifted to showgoers. But I still notice all the new supers walking: Alex, Anok, Loli, Mona, Lulu, and my favorite newcomer Kai. It’s getting hot in here, like, physically. 

7:44PM

De Pino, the last show of the day, expertly scheduled in a venue half-a-block from the Courrèges show. Thank you, David! I gab with sisters Fiffany and Kyle Luu and then find my seat. Was I making a scene? Am I one of those New Yorkers who talks too loud? I sit curled like a shrimp while models in sky-high pleasers teeter past me. The collection is simple, well-edited, with some nice tailoring and, like at Fidan, some eye-catching little capes. Does the designer have promise? Yes. Am I done with clothes for the day? Absolutely.  

8:15PM 

I loiter outside of the Metro because I miss my husband and I have to cry to him on the phone about about being tired and hungry and stressed about all the things I need to do because it makes me realize how happy and lucky I am to be here, riding the train, looking at fashion, watching everyone act out in the name of big money businesses. Back home in America, everything is falling apart.