The City: Walk of Shame
We were too busy paying good money to see Courtney Love sleepwalk through a 45-minute set at Terminal 5 last night to watch the season premiere of The City. Luckily fictional freelancer Betsey Morgenstern was on the job.
A Whitney Port in the Storm
by Betsey Morgenstern
Social Life magazine style correspondent
There was almost a disaster during the second annual group fashion show produced by People's Revolution PR, the reality-show centric fashion PR company founded by Kelly Cutrone (and where I used to be an intern, full disclosure!). A week before the show one of the three showcased designers had to pull out because a blond girl and her annoying brunette friend who where followed by a coterie of television cameras broke the designers knee with a bat. Luckily this young unknown Whitney Port was able to step in and show her Whitney Eve: Made with Love (and the blood of overworked Chinese pattern makers) alongside Mara Hoffman and Nicholas K.
Everyone, just everyone was at the show: buyers from Bergdorf Goodman, the editor of Teen Vogue, and a whole bunch of other people. Just take my word for it. I was determined to get backstage and get the first interview. Why? Oh, because earlier during fashion week, I was promised an exclusive with Anna Sui backstage after the show. I raced back there to try to talk to her and this little, dark-haired tramp in a red top was talking to her. "What were your inspirations?" she asked. "How are you so cool?" was her follow up. "I think you're just great," was her final comment which wasn't even a question at all. I was about to go up to her and hit this bitch upside the head with my tape recorder and then she turned around and it was Olivia Palermo, noted socialist and my life-long enemy. She was wearing a hair disguise!
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I'm doing interviews for Elle.com now," Olivia said.
"Really? Aren't you like an accessories editor?" I asked.
"Well, yeah, but they thought I was much better where I could be seen, like on camera."
"Pshaw!" came out of the mouth of a girl nearby. I looked and it was Erin Kaplan, the chief PR strategist for Elle. "They gave you this job because you fucked your other one up so royally. God, I hate you."
"Come on, Erin," Olivia said. "I bought you lunch and we got over all this."
"Couldn't you see that I was lying to you. I don't think we make a great team at all. I think you are a spoiled bratty bitch and I can barely disguise my complete and utter contempt for you," she said.
"Oh yeah. Well, I'm leaving."
And that is how she ruined my exclusive. So, yes, I was going backstage before the show even started so I could get an interview with Whitney Port. When I got there, I saw her clothing line, which consisted of lace leggings, puffy jackets, and this pastel print that looked just like the cushions in the wicker chair on my granny's porch in Destin, Florida. Whitney was running around yelling at her mother and Roxy Carmichael Olin, the little devil perched on her shoulder, was wearing a headset made for the world's largest air-traffic controller. It was practically falling off her head and making her strain her weak little neck while she tried to keep her head up. She was standing next to Emily, this girl from some reality show on Bravo who has the giggles of Satan in her luxurious hair.
I was waiting for Whitney to stand still for 2 seconds so I could talk to her, but that's when I spotted my weakness: those tiny little individual serving bottles of champagne they hand out at fashion shows. There was one just sitting there on one of the vanity tables backstage. How could I not go and uncork that little wonder? As soon as I did, I heard a thick accented women yell, "Hey! That's my bottle."
"No, it's not, it's sitting right here. It's no one's," I replied.
"That's my dressing station. I'm about to walk in this show and I always need a little bit of juice before I take the stage. And you drank it. You drank my magic juice."
"If it mattered so much to you, then why did you walk away from it, you stupid skinny bitch."
"What did you call me? I'm going to kill you. Give me back my bottle."
She lunged for me, and out of self defense i swung the bottle at her head, making contact with her skull and spattering champagne all over her grandma cushion dress. Damn, now I'm never going to get to drink it. The model was on the ground, rocking her head from side to side and moaning so I knew she was alive. I dragged her out of the way and stashed her body next to the vanity. Luckily models are light and used to be thrown about against furniture. That's when I heard the screams.
"Elena? Elena? Where the fuck is Elena? Get up here right now!" Roxy Carmichael Olin was screaming, her head barely aloft under the weight of a million Judy the Time Life Operator headsets.
I knew where Elena was, she was passed out on the floor with a growing goose egg on her gourd, but I wasn't about to admit that. A silence fell over the whole audience as a moment of dead air hit the the tent. No. One. Was. Walking! Then Roxy pushed an unprepared black lady out onto the runway. She took three short steps with her arms out and righted herself and then walked down the runway to the riotous applause of the masses, like she had just saved the future of all fashion shows.
After that the show ended and Whitney Eve Port took her victory lap. I was waiting with my recorder ready for her when she got off the stage. "Whitney, I have some questions," I said.
"Go right ahead," she smiled while moving her hair out of her face.
"Well, I just saw the collection and I was thinking..." that's when I saw Elana flanked by two very large men wearing ill-fitting suits with little speakers in their ears. I would know a security guard anywhere.
"That's the bitch, right there," Elena said, pointing my way.
"Sorry, Whitney, I gotta run..."