My fashion month started out with a putter…literally: My (normally) trusty Vespa, which is the ultimate method of transport for fashion week, broke down on Fashion Week Eve. So on day one, I started things by pushing my lifeless Vespa to the shop for repairs, while wearing full fashion week regalia: Boris Bidjan Saberi shirt and pants, and Rick Owens boots. Once that was out of the way, I could really focus on my upcoming $100+/day cab fares and mooching off of my friends with drivers and/or expense accounts. After connecting with one of those aforementioned friends, we were off to Milk Studios.

Lincoln Center might be the home of the “official” New York Fashion Week, but who the hell can be arsed to go all the way up there*? Milk Studios, on the other hand, is such an easy location, and you can often catch several shows in one trip. I was able to hit LnA, Frank Tell, Mandy Coon, and Billy Reid in one fell swoop. After the shows finished, I headed to dinner at my new favorite spot, EN Japanese Brasserie in the West Village, with MAC cosmetics mastermind, Alexis Page. During Fashion Week, it feels like you’re either always rushing or always killing time; you’re rarely just going along at a comfortable pace. If you skip one show, then you have an hour to kill. Trying to make it home and back before the next show starts is usually an exercise in futility. If the next show is at Lincoln Center and you’re way downtown, you’re almost definitely going to arrive at the next show sweating, if you make it at all. But I digress.

After dinner, I entered into time-killing mode for about an hour before the LnA party began in the penthouse of Milk Studios (of course). By the time I arrived, the party was already at full capacity. Luckily, I bumped into the lovely events director for Milk, Katie Dineen, who escorted me and some friends upstairs herself, along with a bottle of pink champagne. What service! Gang Gang Dance was playing on the balcony, but after too many hours on my Rick Owens-clad feet, I needed some rest. I headed home, giving myself a 50/50 chance of actually going back out into the night after hitting my couch. After some much needed recharging (quite literally; see: my serious electronics addiction), I willed myself off the couch and made my way across town to the reopening of the Boom Boom Room.

It was nothing short of an absolute mob scene outside at The Standard, so I went up to the 18th floor through the Le Bain side (which was sporting a nice new neon sign) and then crossed over to Boom Boom. Inside was an incredibly attractive crowd, filled with many bold-faced names, and more surprisingly, many, many people whom I had never seen before in my life. The beautiful crowd combined with the great music suddenly halted my attempts of figuring out what else was going on tonight. This was it. Everything was in its right place and nothing more was needed. A few hours later, around 3am, mid-discussion with a friend, the DJ played what I thought was the live version of Kanye West’s recent track “Power”. It took me about 15 seconds to realize that it wasn’t the live version of the song, but in fact Kanye West himself, standing on top of the bar with a microphone, performing live for our room of about 100 people. The crowd went crazy. Well, as “crazy” as a group of impressed-by-nothing New Yorkers during Fashion Week can get. After “Power”, Kanye performed “Good Life”, and was joined on stage— err…bar top, by a saxophonist who had earlier been playing along to whatever the DJ was playing. After this excitement, the night was nearing an end, so naturally I headed to bed Kenmare. My friend David Katz was spinning records, and the place was jam-packed. 30 minutes later, lights on, music off, taxi directly to my bed. Good night, world. See you in the morning when we do it all over again. I might even actually DJ somewhere!

*[Ed note: how about everyone else, such as people for whom attending these shows is a tangible element of their profession. But we do love us some Milk! It makes our bodies good.]

KEYWORDS: Kanye West, new york fashion week, PARTIES