The A-Z's of New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2013

In the past, we’ve done extensive coverage of New York Fashion Week, posting daily summaries from staff members and friends of all the shows and presentations everyone attended over the week. But this season we grew tired of the hustle and decided to do things in a more compelling way. We realized there was no point in having writers blast designers and get us into trouble by saying mean things about shows they didn’t like or even want to be invited to in the first place for the sake of posting about happenings in fashion. Churning out verbal diarrhea about garment construction and patterns and anticlimactic presentations while suffering from alcohol poisoning and low self-esteem just didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. In order to properly cover these events, we needed to approach the week like we would any other major life decision: we needed to chill the eff out and take time to process all the trauma we had been through like adults. Now that the festivities are over and we’ve safely made it through the holiday weekend alive and caught up on sleep after our 10-day bender, we are proud to share with you “The A-Z's of New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2013” according to VICE.

A Is for "Asians"

Now before you get all offended that we’re targeting an entire race, you should know that this is a huge compliment. No matter how good you think you look or dress—you will never look as effortlessly cool as every Asian guy or girl who (unsurprisingly) shows up on all the photo blogs during the week. In fact, photographers will most likely scream at you to move the hell out of the way because your hobo garb and stupid puffy face are massacring their frame of the hot half-Japanese girl standing behind you with the rockabilly bangs and a Hello Kitty umbrella. But it’s not just kids on the streets who are owning the style blogs, designers are also stepping up their game. Take Alexander Wang who, for instance, happens to be one of the most stylish and beautiful boys in the world. We can’t even come up with one bad thing to say about him or his designs. Same goes for Kathleen Kye and Choi Bo Ko from Concept Korea, 10 Crosby, Derek Lam, and Jen Kao who all showed a number of great pieces this past week that we actually wouldn’t need one of our friends to bribe us to wear outside—seriously. Good taste is just in their genes.

B Is for "Boot Camp"

Boot-camp fashion was a huge trend this season with several designers incorporating military prints, colors, and their own takes on the traditional olive drab into their collections. There were furry camouflage jackets at Michael Kors, leather sweatpants at Rachel Comey and Charlotte Ronson, structured-leather, army-green trench coats at Calvin Klein, Realtree camo at Patrik Ervell, and even tailored jackets and cargo pants at Prabal Gurung. While it might not be out of character for one of the aforementioned designers to be heard shouting “You had best square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks, or I will fuck you up!” Full Metal Jacket-style, but judging by their interpretations of the military trend, it’s probably best they stick to fashion and leave the safety of our country to someone who can actually run and shoot a gun and doesn’t have to worry about breaking heels or being able to breathe.

C Is for "Cockblockers" and "Capacity"

The letter C gets two words because they’re both tied to the same category: fashion PR lies. Cockblockers are all the press agents who handle invites to shows but don’t necessarily do PR for brands on a regular basis. Whatever connections you have with the designer don't mean a thing if someone at a PR agency is actually old enough to have seen your publication some 10-odd years ago when you used to dress heroin addicts and illegal immigrants in clothing and try to pass it off as fashion. If you request a spot at an event, you’re going to get some bullshit excuse about them being at capacity or whatever even though they’re showing at the Park Avenue Armory, which is the biggest goddamn venue at NYFW. If Tom Sachs can run his “Space Program” in the same building, I assure you that my tiny ass can fit in there, too. Fuckers!

D Is for "Diets" Because Everyone Was on One

There are a number of unfortunate souls who suffered through juice cleanses, starvation, and amphetamine binges until everything inside them turned to shit and leaked out of their butts—all in the name of fashion. Generally they were the people who were the most obnoxious at shows, fighting with showroom staffers over seating, blacking out, and puking behind planters at late-night parties. Throughout the week we hated on these retards and their friendly backhanded diet tips and weird chia seeds they tried to force on us during small talk as we waited in lines for shows. But now that we look back on things, we actually should be thanking them for all the free snacks we were able to ingest as a result of their body issues. We ate every type of cookie and drank most of the beer at Milk Studios. Stole nearly a case of coconut water at Industria. [Editor’s note: Nix the chocolate-flavored water next season. It sucks!] Ate a million french fries at the Wildfox Couture presentation at Capitale, and to top it all off, we got to stand right in front of the kitchen doors at Prabal Gurung for Target without having to push anyone out of the way. It was like we were VIPs, the first to put every tiny taco and baby rum and coke in our mouths before anyone else in the room. So hats off to the skinny bitches of NYFW—you guys really missed out on some good stuff.

E Is for "Exposed Ankles"

We love the cropped-pants look that fashion guys have been jumpin’ on lately. Thom Browne kind of sparked the movement, and it’s fresh. It gives dudes an opportunity to show off their shoes and their socks. But in the wintertime, in the middle of a fucking blizzard named NEMO, that shit isn’t fresh—it’s retarded. You can’t be trudging through the doo-doo-brown snow of New York City, like men were this fashion week, with your ankles exposed to the elements. Even the schizo bums who talk to themselves and shit in plastic bags have enough sense to bundle up when it’s cold outside. They do it in the summer too, but that's beside the point.

F Is for "Famous People"

Being famous at Fashion Week is tight. You get to sit front row, cut all the lines, go to all the best parties, get free clothing from the most sought-after designers, and hang out with other famous people. If you’re extra lucky, sometimes you even get to design your own clothing line and start out right at the top; then the best magazines kiss your ass and say they love your designs, which are actually pretty basic. Privileges like these are a few of the reasons why we don’t take celebrity-run lines seriously, but we decided to suck up our pride and try to do something no one would ever expect: say one nice thing about each of them. Bono’s fashion house Edun surprisingly put on a good show this season because, thankfully, he has nothing to do with any of their designs. Victoria Beckham used a pleasant shade of yellow as well as some head-swallowing beanies in both collections, even though we don’t think she should be allowed to have two fashion lines. Katie Holmes made a nice oversized plaid jacket for Holmes & Yang that hopefully is the only item in the collection she can be held accountable for. And lastly, the Olsen twins, those two adorable tiny sweet girls, made some furry slippers that we would not be mad at if they were on our feet. Congrats, you guys accomplished something!