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"  I remember my first fashion show clearly: It was my first week on staff in the features department at the New York Daily News and it also happened to be the first day of New York Fashion Week. My bosses, too busy to know what to do with me yet, decided I should cover the shows for them. So when I attended the very first show of fashion week (BCBG Max Azria), I found myself in the front row opposite Alicia Keys. I felt like a total imposter. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not supposed to be here. They&amp;#039;re gonna kick me out at any second,&amp;quot; I thought. Almost 10 years later, I no longer suffer from imposter syndrome, but I still don&amp;#039;t quite feel like I fit in. I&amp;#039;ve never been one to splurge on expensive clothes. Perhaps that&amp;#039;s because I&amp;#039;m practical to a fault. I don&amp;#039;t own a Chanel bag, C\u00E9line shoes, or a Chlo\u00E9 coat. I&amp;#039;m not that good at putting on makeup (do I need to use lip liner when I wear red lipstick?). I don&amp;#039;t know how to blow dry my own hair. Actually, I don&amp;#039;t even own a blow dyer. Related: Nicola Formichetti Makes Over Kim Kardashian for ELLE I always want to look nice and presentable, but during fashion week it&amp;#039;s hard not to feel less than (chic). Everywhere you turn there&amp;#039;s another beautiful editor, or buyer, or blogger, whose hair is perfectly sleek or just the right amount of tousled; her no-makeup makeup looks flawless; and she&amp;#039;s wearing a perfect mash up of expensive-looking things you just vaguely recall from last season&amp;#039;s runway. And I&amp;#039;m always left feeling like I can&amp;#039;t even compete. Related: Is Kim Kardashian the Marilyn Monroe of Our Time? I&amp;#039;m more comfortable being behind the scenes, editing. I&amp;#039;d feel uncomfortable getting attention from the growing hoards of street style photographers outside fashion shows, anyway. But it&amp;#039;s hard not to feel small when the photogs stare you up and down before deeming you unworthy, and then snap-snap-snap away at your companion as you head into a show together. Clothes have the power to transform; to make you feel good about yourself\u2014that&amp;#039;s what is so powerful about fashion. I decided it was finally time for me to harness that power. Related: Street Style: Paris Fashion Week So this fashion week, my first as an ambassador for ELLE, I decided this time would be different. I would make an effort to look chic! (This is ELLE we&amp;#039;re talking about.) I polled my younger, more stylish colleagues for advice. ELLE.com&amp;#039;s fashion editor Danielle sent me a mood board (and by that, I mean she sent me an email with some image attachments) before I headed off to Milan and Paris. And while I was expecting to be intimidated by her vision\u2014I anticipated snaps of models wearing leather pants under skirts, sky-high statement shoes, and an onslaught of mixed prints\u2014she had sent me two looks that were, well, me. My &amp;quot;Looks Inspo&amp;quot; email contained a picture of model Sasha Pivovarova in a nubby, color-block turtleneck and Kim Kardashian wearing various shades of head-to-toe camel. And that was it.  I felt relieved. I didn&amp;#039;t have to wear Sophia Webster lucite heels or Kenzo&amp;#039;s latest label sweatshirt. All I had to do was keep it simple. All I had to do was dress like the most recent incarnation of Kim Kardashian. Her embrace of nondescript neutrals from C\u00E9line and Ala\u00EFa was transformational. The reality star was suddenly chic and so I could be too. Suddenly, it seemed possible. Okay, so I got a little help. Our deputy editor Ruthie, who worked at both Chanel and The Row before joining ELLE.com, lent me a quilted Chanel bag and the most elegant, buttery leather pencil skirt from The Row. I also pack my most prized possession, a grey cashmere shawl-collar wrap coat from Max Mara. Armed with these building blocks, I tried it out. Upon arriving in Milan, post bus ride in to the city\u2014Yes! Some fashion editors take the bus!\u2014I slipped into a simple black sheath dress from COS, some black Zara heels, and my Max Mara coat. At the Cavalli show, I felt pretty hot, and not just because of the actual fire inside the tent. I kept up the streak in Paris, wearing some combination of a slightly cropped sweater (either a chunky turtleneck from &amp;amp;amp; Other Stories, a cashmere crewneck from Everlane, or a ribbed, sleeveless sweater top from Club Monaco), a pencil skirt (the sumptuous leather one from The Row or a white one from Zara), heels, and my Max Mara coat. ELLE accessories director Maria Due\u00F1as Jacobs generously loaned me some Dior sunglasses when I admitted I had forgotten to bring a pair. Outside the Dries Van Noten show, a photographer actually took my photo. I tried to give off my very best mid-stride Kardashian insouciance. After all, we both look pretty polished in Max Mara outerwear.  Of course, the anonymous chic look wasn&amp;#039;t invented by Kim Kardashian (or even one that Kanye conceptualized for her). Audrey Hepburn did it. So did Marilyn Monroe. And so did Jane Birkin. The list goes on. But because Kim Kardashian practically made her career from wearing rainbow colored Herv\u00E9 L\u00E9ger bandage dresses and instantly recognizable marquee designer items, her new chic look is thrown into sharp relief. And perhaps there&amp;#039;s something about Kardashian&amp;#039;s accessibility\u2014on reality TV, on Instagram, in the fact that she continually makes public gaffes\u2014that makes dressing like her seem more attainable than looking like Audrey Hepburn. And somehow I&amp;#039;m uttering this sentence: Kim Kardashian has become my accidental style muse. Photos: Splash News, Joslyn Blair, Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a19055/dressing-like-kim-kardashian-during-fashion-week/>