Fashion Week for the Rest of Us

As New York Fashion Week comes to a close, those in the fashion world recover from blistered feet, two weeks of hangovers, runway vertigo, and prepare the next round. From the outside looking in, it can seem like a glamorous, fabulous, circus of colors, characters, and catwalks but in my opinion, fashion week for the rest of us (and by the rest of us I mean those of us who aren't either working it or living it) can be summed up in 3 basic observations/questions:

1. Wow, they're skinny.

I attended five fashion shows this NYFW and along with the coverage I saw on Vogue, Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed, Refinery 29, and the Daily Beast I continue to be astonished at just how skinny the majority of the models are. I know some people are simply slim. I get it. But there's a certain gaunt "Scream" mask hollowness in the cheeks that separates the skinny from the emaciated. What baffles me is why this look is considered "the look" by so many designers. I know, I know, fashion shows are not about reality; they're about fantasy. The models are extra tall, the clothes extra small and it supposed to give them a grand look. So be it, but they just look hungry!

2.Is that really necessary?

Remember in high school when Halloween gave girls the opportunity to dress in lingerie as an outfit without the ramifications of being considered a "slut"? Well Fashion week does that for folks who want the opportunity to dress absurdly and not be considered absurd...and I love it. During fashion week I see folks take their auras to another level! Literally and figuratively. In an attempt to be noticed, the woodworks are ninja kicked open to reveal every color hair, insanely expensive shoe and purse, asinine and abfab accessory, men in dresses and nipples. Oh the nipples. During fashion week, sheer no longer means NSFW. It's "yes I'm working this!" And this year I saw enough areolas to make 1990s Madonna blush. It's all in fun and fabulousness so I enjoy the mayhem. However, it's when the auras go to another level, on the figurative side of things, that I find myself wanting to scatter more than some peoples' ashes at Bergdorf's. It is unfortunate but some folks take fashion week to be that time to year when instead of letting their inner hoe hang out like at high school Halloween parties, they let their inner asshole hangout at grown up Fashionista parties. It's not any where near as sexy. Contrary to far too popular a belief, style, fashion, and fabulousness are not synonymous with stank, haughty, and self-aggrandizing. I am all at once in awe and in confusion at some of the folks I encounter during fashion week, consistently causing me to mutter to myself or whoever's in earshot "Is that really necessary???" It's fashion week so, yes, it may have been absolutely necessary for that person to be wearing all red vinyl everything looking like walking menstruation, and wearing shoes in the shapes of kittens. However, the attitudes that also make their reveal in and out of the tents are never necessary.

Sit down.

3.I guess white is still the new black when it comes to models.

No really though. What the hell? There are SO few Black models it is downright disrespectful at this point. Yet sistas are still clamoring to get in the doors and the front rows of the fashion shows and doing even more to get their bodies in the clothes, shoes, and bags of these lines that through their shows send a strong message that they simply do not consider Black as beautiful. I guess some may argue, "It's a matter of aesthetics and uniformity" or "The clothes are on display, not the models. So, what does it matter?" or my fav, "There weren't many Black girls that showed up to the casting." Fashion week is not an episode of "Girls" or "Friends" where I'm ok that there is not a Black person in sight because, I honestly believe these characters don't come in to contact with therefore don't have any Black friends. No, in the case of Fashion week it feels wrong. Like they don't want us there. Like it is a choice not a circumstance. When there is one Black model, in a sea of damned near identical looking white models it is so clearly a choice. "Look we're switching it up! Contrast!" Please. For as much diversity as there is in individuality, style, and fierceness watching the runway, on it, I am distracted from the creativity and ingenuity of the clothes by the lack there of in choosing who will be modeling them.

So that's my summation. What are you thoughts? Am I being hyper-Black (someone actually told a friend of mine she was being as such)? Did anything fabulous/wackulous stand out for you this fashion week? Leave it in the comments!