London Fashion Week: Are You Family?

London fashion week kicked off over the weekend. I celebrated the launch by heading to Westbourne Grove with my son to try on pieces from the twenty8twelve collection. Across from their store was a party for a designer collaboration with a well-known leather goods brand. I had RSVPed for the event, and since I'd seen the new creative director in New York and she'd thanked me for writing about her appointment, I hadn't given it a second thought. But with all the just-got-home excitement, I forgot all about the event. But, here I was. I had time on my hands and a sleeping son in a buggy, so I thought I'd quickly pop in. I told the girl at the door my name and ... I wasn't on the list. I told her boss who I was and she said, "It's just an event for friends and family." I stifled a laugh. "Is the new creative director here?" I asked. "She doesn't begin until January," I was told. Of course, the person in question has worked with the old creative director for a couple of years now, but it was a sunny Saturday and I wasn't in the mood for a fight so I left. When I emerged from twenty8twelve, (giant, giant bag in tow -- more on that later), there were about 100 people spilling onto the sidewalk. Some family!

Bungalow 8 had a soft opening that night -- again, just friends and family. Over drinks, one of the people working for the PR company that is organizing the Stella McCartney/Adidas party at the end of the week was complaining that the Stella team wanted their friends invited, not the friends of the PR company. (Fortunately, I am friends with both).

It's all so silly. One would think the idea of these functions was not to drum up attention and get press but instead to keep each other amused. There was a time when I would have been upset about being turned away from a store opening, but those days are long gone. Instead, I now take a page from Vanessa Friedman at the FT who says simply: If they don't invite me, I don't write about them.

Too early for me to talk about my favorite collections, but I took my 3-year-old daughter to PPQ and Amanda Wakeley. I always wondered why editors brought their kids to fashion shows, but now I know. Sheer entertainment value. After being interviewed and photographed by Glamour ("Your shoes are silly," "she has a Cat-In-A-Hat, hat" of milliner Tracy Rose's purple tower), brazenly attempting to crash the Moet V.I.P lounge (by running past the clipboard lady and up the stairs and yelling, 'come on, Mummy!'), and charming her way into a front-row seat next to Samantha Conti of WWD by plonking herself down and offering up a slober-covered lip gloss, she declared her fashion week favorite to anyone who would listen: Peaches Geldorf in "the white ballerina tutu" at PPQ.

That's my kind of family.

Photograph by Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images