Paris Fashion Week: The Politics of Seating

Covering the shows in Paris is not for the faint of heart. Even when I was working for Time magazine the struggle to get tickets often reached the absurd. For instance, every season, year after year, even after I launched the Time fashion supplement and other houses were giving me front row seats, Jean Paul Gaultier would not give me a seat. Every year I would fax (so quaint!, but wait, this was 2002 -- maybe so pathetic?) and every time I checked into my hotel, nothing. So I would ring Lionel, the PR and say, "Hello, Lionel, It is Lauren from Time." And he would say, cheerfully, "Hello, Lauren, how are you?" And I would say, "Lionel, I am not so well. Because every season I fax you a request for a seat and every season nothing." And then he uttered the immortal words that made me realize just how ... confused this industry can be: "Lauren, I do not know that Jean Paul Gaultier has a relationship with Time magazine." What can you say to that?

Eight years later and here I am again. At one show this week I was given a ticket with my name but no seat number. I was ushered in, but when I showed my tickets to a friend who worked for the company she said, "Oh! You're Seating on Arrival!" I had never heard that before, but it sounded just too suspiciously like Dead on Arrival.

Then, when I complained in a long volley of emails about not getting a seat to another house they informed me that I had now been moved to the TBS list. As in "To Be Seated." I dare not ask what list I was on before.

I would feel worse about all this except that I have done it long enough to know that it's not me being rejected, it is my job. And it seems to be happening to a lot of jobs this year. A handful of "front-row" editors were sent form letters by Chanel saying that they would not be given the seats that their place on the hierarchy demanded. The hierarchy? A designer told me that he has to send all his invitations to New York editors in clear envelopes because people there are too busy to open anything that comes in the post. (Or are they afraid of terrorist attacks?) Another house rang me the day before their show to say that although they had confirmed my seat they had to rearrange the seating and they lost 400 spots and I wouldn't have a seat after all. At least they rang. When I wrote another house to ask if my ticket had been lost in the mail, I received a reply that started, "Hi! I hope you're having fun in Paris!" and then went on to say they didn't have space for me at a show I had been planning my schedule around.

"No," I wrote back. "Not fun at all." I have celebrated my birthday, Valentine's day and Mother's Day in the cramped rows of fashion shows. Maybe I would care less if I'd seen more great clothes. But the pickings were slim this year. McQueen, Prada, Blass, Lanvin, Kane stand out. I'm too tired to think. There were lots of bad trousers and a fair number of silly shoes. I think London was the best. But maybe that is because I just want to go home.