With London Collections: Men upon us and London Fashion Week around the corner in February, Wonderland let you in on some fiercely guarded industry secrets about how to prepare for the Autumn/Winter show season.
1. Panic buy your outfit
In an ideal world, you would have picked out an outfit for each day, lavishing care and attention on every miniscule detail of your look. In reality, you woke up today and spent the first 20 minutes trying to find your go-to Fashion Week shirt/dress/skirt, before realising you still haven’t picked it up from the dry cleaner’s. The only solution to stop this from happening again tomorrow? Order an entirely new outfit online in a state of frenzied hysteria.
Try: Yoox offers next day delivery for £22.50. www.yoox.com
2. Fully charge every Apple device you own
Obvious but totally necessary: there’s no love for Blackberry at Fashion Week. Your iPad, your iPhone, your iPad Mini – these will all come in handy when you simply have to take a blurry and dimly-lit photograph of a show (see this). Also, you’ve now spent so long fiddling with Instagram filters that you’ve just missed the last five looks on the catwalk. And you’ve spent the show cross-eyed, mouth open, watching the entire thing through your tiny iPhone screen. Whoops.
Try: The Mophie Juice Pack Reserve portably charges all Apple products and offers up to double the battery life. www.mophie.com
3. Go on a hasty and potentially ill-advised diet
You ditched our New Year’s resolutions, and as for giving up something for Lent – is that even a thing anymore? But what if you’re seen in the background of an Alexa Chung pap shot, gently floating through SW1 like an inflatable heifer? There’s no time to go on a diet of baby food! Quick, grab the cayenne pepper and maple syrup!
Try: Diet services like Soulmatefood deliver a more sensible, personalised weight loss food plan starting from £25 a day. www.soulmatefood.com
4. Practise your winning street style pose
You’ve perfected your outfit, now decide on your pose. Are you poised like Miroslav Duma? Are you kooky like Cara Delevigne? Are you – what? The photographer from some obscure Japanese style publication nobody actually reads has asked that other girl for a shot instead?! Her shoes are from Aldo! What the fuck is going on? Street style is fucking dead, man.
Try: Watching Bill Cunningham New York for an insight into the mind of a street style photographer. Out on DVD now.zeitgeistfilms.com/billcunninghamnewyork
5. Learn how to discreetly celeb spot
If you build it, the B-listers will come. Fashion Week has turned into a magnet for pop stars and actors to prove that they’re, like, totes into fashion and are bezzies with Christopher Shannon. In reality, they have one thing on their mind – whisper it – endorsement deals. These celebrities may move among the normals like regular humans, but everybody knows that they exist on another planet where the words “knock-off next season Balenciaga boots” don’t exist. So at some point, everyone at Fashion Week just decided to pretend they not to notice any of them. Ever. Trust us: there’s nothing worse than somebody freaking out over Olivia Palermo entering the building.
Try: Cultivating a thousand-yard stare that says: “I’ve seen supermodels come, go and fall over on the catwalk. You ain’t impressing no-one.”
6. Perfect the art of getting something for nothing
Times are tough. Once upon a time, you could walk away from Fashion Week with more than just a goody bag containing a travel-sized can of hairspray and a key chain made in a Chinese sweatshop. Despite the crunch, this hasn’t negated the unmitigated enthusiasm that people still have for getting something for free. If you sharpen those elbows and make a beeline for the terrified PR intern carrying 500 gift bags, you might come away a winner. Think of it as the fashion version of the bushtucker trial in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
Try: Doing the Anna Wintour power walk.
7. Try to exercise some form of self-restraint
Number of hours wasted waiting in line for a late show: 2. Number of times you tried to convince your PR friend to get you a driver on ‘expenses’: 3. Number of times you almost tripped over the cobblestones in Somerset House: 6. Despite what you think, that sixth glass of white wine is not a good idea. Just kidding! You earned that Sauvignon Blanc, girl. Drink it down and repeat to yourself: “I’ve only got to survive until Milan.”
Try: Anything with an alcohol percentage over 12%.
Words: Zing Tsjeng