Every time Paris Fashion Week comes around, I obsess over every Instagram post from my favorite bloggers, editors, models and personalities in their glamorous rush through the City of Light.
… Then a part of me has a mini-breakdown inside, wishing how I could be there.
Fashion Month is a stylish, juiced-up blur of runway clothes, street chic, coffee, champagne, brunches, dinners and after-parties, but PFW serves as the pinnacle of it all.
My first legitimate fashion encounter happened in January 2014 while I was studying abroad in Paris—I saw a runway model on the metro.
We stood next to each other on the quiet metro car—me, at an impressively short height of 5′ 2″, in my awkward puffy jacket, next to her elegant, nearly 6′ frame—and I was silently debating whether or not to say something to her. An American model from Wichita, Kansas, Lindsey Wixson started modeling at 14 years old and was able to build an incredible career over the next few years by landing major campaigns with Prada, Miu Miu and others. I’m a few years older than her, which means if I was 21 years old at the time, she was probably 18 or 19.
But I knew that she wasn’t here for leisure. It was haute couture week and she was probably definitely bouncing from one show to the next.
I opted not to bother her—the leggy supermodel got off at Palais Royal.
Slightly starstruck, I checked her Instagram to see if it was really who I thought it was.
My suspicions were confirmed by her pouting selfie uploaded on Instagram shortly after leaving the metro, wearing the motorcycle jacket with the fur collar and headphones I had spotted her in minutes before.
I have been lucky enough to be experience NYFW. A few years ago, Cara and I went to see Lie Sangbong’s runway show at Chelsea Piers and we would later volunteer backstage at Baja East, where I completely missed my opportunity to meet Leandra Medine of Man Repeller…
It sounds so spoiled to say that I’m over NYFW—the evolution of NYFW after Bryant Park and Lincoln Park, as well as the overall impact of social media and the blogging scene, has created a whole different animal than what I had aspired to join when I was growing up. I love the rush of NYFW, I think I’m just ready to experience something different.
If I had to immerse myself anywhere, I want to be fluent in Parisian chic, but always keep a subtle American accent at all times.
New England Parisienne 