Being there (Y-3)

Last season, one of my editors asked me at the last minute to cover one of the Bryant Park shows. “Sure!” I said, eager for the chance. The show was the next day. Despite all my advanced pleading skills I failed to get an invitation….but wait! Aren’t all the shows online now, stills and video? Sure! I wrote my item. They loved it, but at the last minute my editor asked if I had been there. No, I confessed. This broke their rule, and the item never ran. (Since then, I’ve written for them many times, so honesty does pay, at least once.) But still: in this panoptic age what does one gain from being physically present at a show? Does all the theater and the distractions of being in a crowd of living beings who react or don’t react in unison a benefit or a cost? If you are there, is your appreciation more pure, or more polluted? In the art world, it’s a commonplace that no one goes to an opening to see art, but people really do go to shows to see the clothes, and just as in the golden age of 20^th century theater, the fashion critics come on opening night (the only night) and write their reviews immediately.

So how much of the ‘there’ do you get from being there? At Y-3, there was first the pleasure of going to Pier 40, on West St at Houston, and going first down a driveway that opened onto…a soccer field, with teams in play. This was not an effect, just a regular match. But this is an addidas brand, and a playfield hidden on a pier was very Y-3 architecture, so it sharpened the mood. Turning to the right and skirting the field, we were directed through the door or a long dark garage, with green pin lights on the left lit by small spots on the right, since the green landing strip was totally insufficient to get us 100 feet to the end of the dank room and the tables at the end.

Inside, on five banks of bleachers, we faced a wall of ice in foot thick bricks that were melting, but very slowly. To survive this, Y-3 issued each of us cheap fleecy blankets that molted and made everyone look like they just got off shift in the chicken factory, and chemical hand warming pads. Then we could sit and watch the ice melt, or watch as flashbulbs surrounded various celebs. Through a dark crowd, in the front row, there’s that golden face from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I haven’t spent enough time watching a man being photographed by so many at once. The bursts are so bright and fast that even the golden face looks like it is being executed. A final smile for the cameras?

Up by the ice, another photo subject smiles and bobs. Pose, smile, pose. Natalie Portman. She knows what she is supposed to do and she does it. As if jerked by an invisible string. In this moment, she only exists for still cameras. Watching her do it feels indecent. I still look.

Of course, there are some clothes later, but the Sun paid for this part so I’m giving it to them first.