The Most Fashionable Flea
By, Chase Lindsay Rosen
New York Fashion Week 2010 might be one of the only things in New York City that has the best and worst reputations, simultaneously for only a week. For those fashion and style aficionados it’s paradise on an island (well, actually a plaza). But, for others it is the ultimate nuisance: an overcrowded city filled with people who flew thousands of miles for a mere glimpse of a D-Lister celebrity or celebrities dying for 7-20 minutes in Jill Stuart, Marc Jacobs or Alexander Wang heaven.
Fashions Night Out was a particular instance of this weeklong obsession with what’s in and what’s out, which caused an exceptional amount of havoc in NYC. For those hailing from SoHo, imagine lines of hundreds of people curling around the narrow blocks and an overload of cell phone flashes and blacked out Suburban’s. Local downtowners were faced with mobs of people hoping to purchase a $25 nail polish from Chanel or snap a picture with the mah-jor stylist Rachel Zoe at the Piperlime Pop Up Store.
For those living in the Lincoln Center area, it’s a whole other story. With Fashion Week happening on the Upper West Side this year, road closures and exceptional traffic are rampant. With school starting, this high society event is a disturbance to not only public transportation and parking, but for those who live in, work around and go to school in the area. With over 70 shows scheduled for this season, make sure to dodge the limousines when crossing the street, leave an extra 20 minutes to grab a cab and try walking on the street to avoid the models walking at a glacial speed in their 8 inch stilettos.
So if you haven’t already, keep you calendars clear and cars parked from September 9th through September 16th. The Fashion Gods are (happily) moving in to Lincoln Center and so are it’s followers. But for those New Yorkers who don’t care who is wearing what try look at this week as an invasive, concentrated and persistent economy boosting pest.