Below the gently sloping hipped-roof of an unassuming three-storey building in the Marais, a rafter of wide width protrudes dangerously into the work space of the Stella McCartney Press Office. Normally a rafter of this sort would fade from one’s consciousness and become invisible along with the other construction elements of the building. Since space is at a premium in this attic office, however, the rafter runs the length and is directly above the work desks of the occasional interns and low level employees who come to staff the Paris Show Room whenever Fashion Week enchants the city and the world.
Roughly thirty times per day for two and a half weeks, interns and visiting staff members ducked their way under the white painted rafter and proceeded to walk half erect to their respective work stations. As a row of low standing filing cabinets occupy the space behind the pathway, the scene of Stella staffers making their way to and from their desks is amusingly similar to that of the “8 ½ floor” in Spike Jonze’s 1999 film, Being John Malkovich. Any levity the office arrangement offers onlookers is overpowered by a sympathetic “Ouch! That had to hurt” sentiment whenever an unfortunate intern neglected to clear the space and ran full force into the rafter’s unforgiving constitution. These incidents of private pain and public embarrassment afflicted each and every intern who was unfamiliar with the surroundings. And, I’m sad to say, afflicted me twice. Thankfully, the frequency of such incidents diminished as our internship progressed and our subconscious survival instincts learned how to navigate such danger areas.
As the interns’ heads bruised and swelled from their run-ins with the rafter, I was somewhat surprised by the other swelled heads to be found amongst the fashion fabulous crowd of Paris Fashion Week. Rather than being afflicted with injury, these heads were inflated with attitude and whenever I came across such big-headed fashionistas, I couldn’t help but think, “how cliché, how passé, and how unfortunate they don’t get it.”
Fashion is a strange world. It is a living art form that strives to be in step with the collective beating heart of the masses. Good designers are able to keep their finger on the world’s style pulse for years and great designers are able to do it for decades. These designers fashion clothing to enhance and liberate the wearer’s beauty for others to see. After roughly six months of tireless strife bringing the designer’s seasonal fashion vision to fruition, all the hard work cumulates in a parade of “perfect” women and men animating the clothes on the runway. How a garment moves with every forward step of the model is critiqued by hundreds of discerning eyes in the audience and millions of viewers around the globe.
The single greatest elemental state-of-being with which a fashion model can enhance a garment is confidence. A calm collected disposition of a model adds intangible value to a garment and elevates clothes that simply compliment physical attributes to the status of true desirability in the minds of buyers and reviewers. Fashion conscious consumers not only want the “look” the model wears, they subconsciously want his or her confidence too. Thus, despite the old adage that clothes make the man, we have to conclude that a certain amount of one’s inner temperament is also an important element of one’s style.
Unfortunately there exists a minority of people in the fashion world who mistake having confidence with having attitude. To be sure, it’s an easy mistake to make as confidence is inherently nuanced. For this naïve minority, confidence is only seen superficially as being above concern and is emulated with a type of misguided extremism. This aggrandized caricature of a fashionable man or women is slipped on, zipped up, and worn like a costume by precisely those people who will never reach the upper echelons of the truly fashionable. The legendary status of the Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis variety is only reached by fashion icons whose state-of-being rises high above mere confidence and inhabits instead a state-of-grace. Confidence, in its essences, is being at peace with yourself despite your surroundings. Grace, by contrast, is being at peace with yourself and being magnanimous with others around you. Ironically, the dismissive self-centered caricature of a “confident fashionable person” worn by the naïve relegates them farther away from their desired fashion status rather than closer to it.
Before and during the Stella McCartney Autumn/Winter 2012 fashion show in Paris’ ornate Hotel de Ville, it was my job to keep the hungry and crafty fashion photographers at bay and in their respective places. In between chasing down photographers who had snuck backstage or onto the “front row” to snap shots of such celebrities as Anna Wintour, Salma Hayek, Alicia Keys, and Sir Paul McCartney, I was able to survey the crowd of eight hundred or so guests. While the vast majority of the fashion elite in attendance occupied, I am sure, a sensible state-of-being on the confidence continuum separating the naïve from the graced, one man in particular exuded the type of savoir faire that the legendary fashion icons possess.
Wearing his signature blue house-brand workman’s jacket purchased from the Parisian BHV department store rather than a designer suit, 83 years-old New York Times “street fashion” photographer, Bill Cunningham, seemed thoroughly out-of-place seated in the envied front row among the fashion elite. While Mr. Cunningham’s aesthetic appearance belied his current standing in the fashion world, his gentile and unaffected temperament spoke volumes about his future status as a fashion legend. This unassuming man of advanced age exhibited more uninhibited appreciation for art of fashion than nearly any other guest at the Stella show. The only guest who openly appreciated the designer’s hard work more was Stella’s own father, Sir Paul McCartney, whose pride was evident in his exuberant applause at the show’s end.
As dismayed as I am by the fashion minority who don’t get it, the naïve who mime confidence rather than effortlessly exude it, my faith is reinforced by the ones who do get it. Mr. Cunningham’s open delight and graceful disposition and the unapologetic fatherly pride Sir Paul McCartney had for his daughter’s hard work were inspirational in their sentiment and, in a way, point to the true heart of fashion business. For what else is the fashion industry but the business of making others look beautiful? The fact that these two fashionable gentlemen chose to celebrate what really matters in the world of fashion—that is the hard work, artisanship, and vision that is needed to create beautiful garments—rather than merely celebrating themselves should be a lesson to those young professionals currently entering the business. And, (after my short stint working with other dedicated people to execute a fashion show) if I were to offer advice to those entering the business, it would be to always remember to watch your head.
