I Am So Famous, Please Feed Me
fashion week is the perfect time to be hungry
wrote this for a class almost a year ago and everyone thought i was super glamorous for Doing Fashion Week and they weren’t completely wrong. one hour i’d be getting cut in the bathroom line by central cee. the next i’d be searching for spare pills under my couch. this was the week i was so broke i could only eat at press dinners and off of hors d’oeuvres trays. to keep myself full, i’d tell myself that fashion week is the perfect time to be hungry. bringing this back to combat my fashion week fomo. the afters will not save you. clout will not pay the bills until you sell it on depop. beauty is food for the soul but that’s really it.
my friends call me a professional party girl. i used to want to be a lawyer. i do all my weekend activities during the week. wednesdays are the new fridays, said everyone with a problem ever. thursdays are the new sundays and mondays are the new thursdays if they’ve been rough enough. i’ve given myself pink eye from how much eyeliner i’ve been wearing lately. and i’ve spent more time at the standard than at home.
thursday, feb 8. the start of fashion week.
11pm: start of the night, midtown (?) for the puma afterparty.
i didn’t have enough instagram followers to catch an invite to the show whose guest list i helped curate. whatever (it was not whatever). everyone was standing around waiting for A$AP or rihanna to show up. they didn’t. i had eight little things of tuna. nikki told me i was going to get sick. i told her not only is seafood in my blood, but i’m always eating out of the trash. once i bought a vivienne westwood shirt off of japanese eBay (it was only $50) but that meant i couldn’t get groceries that week, so i found myself face-down-ass-up in my trash can for a day-old piece of spam. since then i’ve eaten a lot of free pizzas on top of trash cans, a lot of fries out of trash cans, etc. i’ve strengthened my intestines. i leave after — in the middle of ranting to a friend about invisibility and thankless jobs — someone interrupts me to hit on her. but i had a small burger on my way out to lift my spirits and soak up A$AP’s weird whiskey line.
1am: katya and atom’s birthday, st d’s.
atom works his own party so well that people forget they’re there because he’s another year older. winnie comes up to me and asks me if i have drugs before she asks if i’m ok. another person comes up to me and expresses anger at the fact that i won’t write about them. that’s my cue to go.
2am: home sweet home (the bar, not my bed).
me, lucas, mercer, and caleb are over st d’s. lucas says soemthing like “let’s blow this popsicle stand” and we end up at home sweet home. allyson plays she wants revenge. we leave when the lights come on.
3am: i get back to st d’s, see a girl who tried to sabotage what she thought was my relationship with her ex, laugh in her face, and then leave. i don’t remember how i got home. i just remember being sad.
friday, feb 9. it’s the weekend, so it’s finally ok for me to be doing what i do all the time during the week.
7pm: start of the night, downtown at the office.
i stay at work to get ready for anna bolina. i put on more eyeliner and drink canned margaritas that have been in the fridge since the summer (before we had a fridge).
8pm: at the show, some foggy warehouse in Brooklyn.
i fear i’m wearing too many clothes. the people around me make enemies out of me. this isn’t the devil wears prada. we’re in bushwick. you’re wearing dollskill. calm down.
11pm: some weird mansion even deeper in brooklyn for the vaquero x pornhub party.
i’m definitely wearing too many clothes. i wonder if, in their efforts to appear subversive and edgy, everyone forgot about the multiple allegations of non-consensual uploads not taken down pornhub. i’m seeing people that make me swallow the embarrassment of having to ask for what the menu labels as a “wet pussy shot.” i spent half the night drinking and the other half asking people if they’ve seen babylon — specifically the dante’s inferno-esque montage part where the guy ends up at that freaky multi-story mansion party where sexual thrills devolve into erotic horrors.
1st floor. i find my buddy mark (this line has my classmates wide-eyed and asking me if i’m “friends with the cobrasnake” i’m like ‘yes but he’s super chill and i can also tell you his wifi password if you want.’) he pushes me over to his friends in front of the pornhub balloons and says “let izzy take your picture!” and all i could say was “sorry! my camera’s covered in vodka, so it might be a minute.” turns out i was talking to alt-porn legend joanna angel. kelly cutrone and i reminisce about anna delvey’s rooftop party from last season. everyone is making out with each other.
2nd floor. central cee’s bodyguard asks me if he could cut me in line for the bathroom. i didn’t want to say yes but the lady in front of me said yes for the both of us, but she let me come in with her and we live to pee in front of strangers another day. outside, someone is inquiring about a lost juul. someone else is walking around with edibles on a tray. mark is taking pictures of some girls who roll around on the floor. which tracks.
3rd floor: i trip going up the cheetah print stairs and get cornered for some ostensibly pleasant and not at all charged small talk. that made me order more shots. someone releases a lone pornhub balloon into the sky. a brilliant comet of debauchery flying over new york. vaquera and pornhub’s own satellite. on my way back down, i unknowingly offer hunter schaffer a whiff of my poppers (she declines). i felt the rush a bit too hard and finally understood what people meant when they say the ‘sank’ into a piece of furniture. the blood in my head was so loud i legitimately believed i was going to die in the pornhub leather loveseat. i wasn’t scared.
3am: somehow i leave and get pizza. i was hoping for some sort of reprieve but the pizza guy kept hitting on me and i haven’t been back since. i cry on the toilet while listening to “are we still friends” by tyler the creator. fashion is so glamorous. i eat my wings and spill my meds. i stay up to write.
saturday, feb 10. and on the third day, he rested.
i skip all the parties to see patti smith with lucas and angelina. we cry when she sings. i don’t get fomo. lucas ends up in the green room with her. maybe i get a little fomo. he says she smells like dreams.
sunday, feb 11. sundays are my fridays sort of
8pm: the shop, downtown.
i love that my friend’s place has a name. i’m in an exterminator’s basement and overdressed in the hottest way possible. i kiss a few of my friends and watch the superbowl and make use of avery’s free beer vending machine. would’ve been super american if i weren’t in a mesh tank top and bondage pants.
11pm: dese shoves me into an uber to go to the ludovic afters. i used to make fun of people who called after parties ‘the afters’ because it felt like they wanted everyone to know how much they were at ‘the afters’ that it needed to be abbreviated. i realize i’ve become what i’ve hated and it really does need abbreviation. i don’t know anyone in the car but i’m sitting on the floor between the two backseats and seeing everyone from a very unflattering angle but none of them are sober enough to be self-conscious. the guy who’s notoriously into teenagers hits on me.
12am: the standard. we finally get in.
i’ve forgotten what it’s like to have to wait in line and i feel like a bitch realizing this. the ldss dedication to nudity and various states of undress prevails. the well-loved little shirt + big pants recipe becomes leather harness + leather pants or no shirt + barely pants. i went home wearing less clothes (i lost my tie).
the girl next to me despairs about how she “didn’t get to make out with anyone tonight” and her friend says he “wanted to find love.” first, i don’t think any girls are going to find a husband in the ldss crowd. everyone was in assless chaps. second, i didn’t find love. didn’t do poppers either. that second part is ironic considering we’re at the party of the guy who dressed the guy who made the song about poppers. but other than that, everyting makes sense. your soulmate isn’t in new york during fashion week. it’s been three days and i’ve already spent more time at the standard than in my own bed. some places are built to make marriages. others are built to throw good parties. let’s just say you won’t find love at ludovic de saint sernin. i know this. doesn’t mean i’m not sad about it.
3am: i swipe through hinge and see someone’s profile include a picture with dese. i decide to walk home.
monday, feb 12. i break my four-day bender because i’m in classes all day.
sofia’s done an interview with guest of a guest and names me as “one of the coolest people in new york.” i wonder if she knows i’m out of meds and groceries. i sleep through the party i was supposed to be at.
tuesday, feb 13. climax. my first time in a while being out during the day
12pm: a showroom near anna delvey’s.
i wear the outfit i wore on sunday because i didn’t like how i looked in any of the paparazzi pictures. i redeem myself.
1pm: pit stop (nap and an outfit change)
discourse about a certain gone with the wind-themed salon hits the phones. it’s not pretty.
2pm: hopeless at home and scavenging my inbox for food
i’m officially broke. i have no food at home. i’ve been off my meds for a few days because i can’t pay for my prescription. i’m writing about textures and silhouettes while in my underwear searching between couch cushions for loose pills. i rejoice when i see an invite to a press dinner tonight. food secured. i feel like a hunter-gatherer. ***ironically, reading this a year later, i’m once again out of meds and searching for loose pills because the duane reade on 14th and 3rd can’t handle basic operations. maybe once i’m medicated again i’ll have the sense to delete that line.
6pm: still downtown but at the wiederhoeft show.
i was super excited for this but no one in fashion is ever excited for anything. the sun comes in through the window and hits julia fox in a really pretty orange light. they give me a nice seat. the lady next to me and i share gasps. i get interviewed by glamour and teen vogue and realize how hard it is to be interviewed, even though i conduct them all the time. glamour asks me about my fashion hot takes and i say something along the lines of “stop adding -core to everything you only make it easier the industry to take advantage of you” and i can tell they agree with me and i can also tell that glamour will not be putting my take in their instagram reel. i don’t think im hot or famous enough to afford to be so mean to everyone. i have to stop getting paparazzi’d because i have a lunar new year dinner and it’s the only meal i’ll get that day.
7pm: dinner with staple at this really good dumpling place.
i could cry. this is my first meal of the day and they give me free clothes. i tell my boss i feel like katniss the first time she goes to the capitol. i know it would be tacky to ask for a to go box but most of us are asian here. i don’t ask but also know they’d understand.
11pm: somewhere in brooklyn after walking over that bridge by silo.
i’m so full but i go to the luar afters. i don’t know how i ended up here. catch a glimpse of beyonce in bushwick and a photographer celebrates loudly after getting a shot of her, announcing that he’s quitting photography now. i’m throwing back a few awful rum and cokes before the open bar closes. walking like a newborn deer in my platforms on uneven concrete. making eye contact with my coworkers while doing some unsightly things that would normally get me fired.
3am: clando’s. as much as i make fun of clando’s, this was much needed.
i’m over fashion industry apathy and clout chasing. i need to have a cheap beer with people who won’t ask me for a list spot. my friend is friends with the guy that every indie rocker wants to be and we end up talking about my love life and he gives me a ride home in his forever-22 car. he offers me a guinness and i turn it down. it’s my first time that week saying no to a free drink.
Living vicariously through this blog post.
The kind of accounts I’m on this app to read