For all the air-kissing and wardrobe-flaunting that Fashion Week provides, many attendees love nothing more than moaning about just how much work it really is. “My nails were screaming,” says Fern Mallis, who runs 7th on Sixth. “It’s fabulous to get away for just two minutes.”
Which is why suites are set up to fulfill the fashionistas’ many needs. Take the Vanity Fair command post at the Bryant Park Hotel. Time Out New York’s Susan Joy stopped by for a manicure before the Oscar de la Renta show (exhausting!) and a lava-stone massage after. Kristina Stewart, society editor of Vanity Fair, was mulling over a pedicure when she spotted C. Z. Guest, Society Legend, and bounced up as if her python stiletto boots were spring-loaded. “The socialites don’t really know their way around this neighborhood,” she said. “So it’s nice for them to have somewhere to go!”
In a back room, Dane LaChiusa, an artist dressed in a striped boater top, was available, courtesy of Jack Spade, to sketch made-over guests. “All these people are really conscious of their looks,” he observed as he drew two noses on one editor, Picasso-style.
A few blocks south, on the forty-third floor of Atlas (a new apartment building offering rooftop yoga and Zen fountains in the lobby), Naomi Campbell was having her makeup refreshed by Vincent Longo (“Ooh, I love it. Please send one of everything, please“). A silent, Fabio-esque hairstylist from Frédéric Fekkai administered forceful head rubs and smooth blowouts as a rep from Sjal Cosmetics was enticing editors to inspect their hideous sun damage in a little ultraviolet booth. “The New York editors are so much more polished than the Europeans,” John Rhamani, a Fekkai stylist, said. “It shows you what New York is all about.”