My Sixth Fashion Week: A Diary

Image via Complex Original

I was back, and it felt so good. I checked in to the same Holiday Inn that I always stay at, and the desk clerk totally recognized my name and as they typed whatever it is hotel clerks have to type to get you a room, he said, “Good to have you back, Mr. Moy. What brings you to New York? Business?” And I totally lied and said I was in town on business, saying, “Yep, I’m here covering Fashion Week.”

To which he replied, “Wait, Fashion Week doesn’t happen for a week or two.” And I tried to explain the whole NYFW:Men’s thing but gave up after realizing he really didn’t give a fuck why I stay a Holiday Inn on the Lower East Side once every six months. I walked away with my key card and the realization that despite staying at this Holiday Inn for, like, three years, no one at this fine establishment will ever believe that I am actually attending New York Fashion Week. I lashed out by immediately placing the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door and going on Twitter.

HOLY SHIT I GOT TO SLEEP IN BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE TO WRITE FOUR PINS POSTS. I woke up well rested and already behind schedule. I went to one presentation on my “I’m here on my own covering Fashion Week to sell stories to major publications, because I’m a real writer,” flow before I broke down and texted Lawrence to see if he was going to any shows. He and everyone else I knew were going to the Deveaux show (a new label by the Carson Street crew), but somehow I didn’t get invited to the show. But, I did get invited to the party later that night. Instead of simply requesting an invite like a normal journalist, I just went and got some pretty good dumplings in Chinatown. After eating my feelings, I headed over to the afternoon presentations.

I wandered around the presentations for, like, 15 minutes before deciding it was free beer o’clock. Before I could even say “Peroni please,” I spot the one and only Narc Dad AKA Noah Johnson AKA Four Pins’ former overlord, cursing and holding court. After the requisite daps and shit talking, we perused the presentations (I pretended I hadn’t spent the last 15 minutes perusing the collections so I didn't embarrass myself) and then we walked over to the Grailed office to kill time before the Carson Street party. The Grailed office is wild, you guys. Within ten minutes of being there I had bought a Nom de Guerre vest/jacket thing. Everyone in that office is so good at hyping you up on purchases. It’s wild. That place is like the Wolf of Wall Street, but with jawns.

It was time for the Carson Street party. Celebrating a new collection and a new space, the Carson Street crew knows how to throw a party. I floated into the giant, light filled space on a cloud of menthol and insouciance and immediately walked to the open bar. At that point a fucking LEGEND cut in front of me in line and promptly told the bartender to pour out the mixed drink he made and pour him an entire plastic cup full of whiskey. I stood in amazement as he gulped half of it right there and then waltzed over to look at the Craig Green rack, fingering all the tassels and straps. I sheepishly asked for a beer and made my way through the party only to run into Angelo, Four Pins alum and Grimy Living ambassador. We went outside to smoke a cigarette and have a variation of the same conversation we have every fashion week—I ask him if he misses Portland and then we make fun of everyone who is inside whatever function we are currently outside of smoking.

I made it back inside the party and was rapidly introduced to someone who looks very young. He told me he started reading Four Pins in 8th grade. I apologized profusely and then hoped he didn’t notice that I was a bit faded when he asked me about what colleges I had applied to. He had to leave the party to go study for the ACT's. I told him to stay in high school forever. I spent the rest of the party saying that yes, I am Lawrence’s one friend from Detroit. Thankfully, only, like, 12 people asked me how I was doing post-Four Pins. It was like the first time you go out after a bad breakup and all your friends feel obligated to ask you if you’re okay, even if they don’t really want to hear a full explanation on how you really do feel. Like “It was time,” and you’re in a "good place," and all that. After staying at the party late enough to alienate the owners of Carson Street, I ambled to the hotel, visions of Burger King swimming in my intoxicated brain. I ended up not getting Burger King because it was closed, and it was also midnight, and I had a big day tomorrow. But mostly because it was closed.

I was excited because my confirmed best friend Robert Geller was showing today. And true to form, he fucking killed it. After Geller, Lawrence convinced us all we had to go to Nautica because they treat him like a goddamn king there. Some cool teens said R.I.P. to Four Pins and then asked Lawrence if he had any lean. I think they were skipping class to see the shows and I’m pretty sure they got better seats than I did all week.

We had a bunch of time to kill until the N Hoolywood show, so the geniuses I was with decided since the venue was near Times Square, we should go eat at the world’s largest T.G.I. Fridays. At first we were gonna go to the Applebee's across the street but L.A.S. said he had a "traumatic experience" at an Applebee's when he was eight years old. F.Y.I. the traumatic experience wasn’t food poisoning or giardia. It was worse. They served his mozzarella sticks to him with ketchup instead of marinara dipping sauce. The lesson here is don’t fuck with Lawrence even on some minor condiment shit because he will never forget it.

Anyways, we walked into the world’s largest T.G.I. Fridays and immediately could tell that no one wanted to seat six dudes dressed like assholes. The vibes were just not good at the world’s largest T.G.I. Fridays, so we called an audible and ran across the street to Applebee's. We ate an appetizer platter, drank some beers and then watched Lawrence almost die when he tried Jian’s vape. Dude coughed up a lung and the entire restaurant looked over as we all erupted into laughter and started yelling “THE VAPE IS TOO DANK” while a giant cloud floated above us.

Before I packed for this trip I totally perused the five day weather forecast. Every forecast called for an 80% chance of rain today. But guess what? I didn’t pack any rain-friendly shoes because fuck rain and fuck this shitty weather that is not cold enough for dope outerwear and not warm enough to just wear a cool T-shirt. Like every other climate change denier, I woke up, looked at the weather report, and put on a fresh pair of sneakers, because Mother Nature wasn’t gonna stop me getting these fits off .... until I walked the two blocks from the subway stop to the venue and then had to sit second row at Perry Ellis while my feet soaked in all the excess water my Diadoras absorbed.

But, attending this show was worth all the rain, my second row status, and the fact the venue was as humid as the tropical house at your local botanical garden because I got to watch Liam get ejected from his assigned seat by Cuba Gooding Jr. I also saw Jian very politely and very demurely boot some gauche-ass seat stealer from his seat. The key to a strong seat flex is to not make a big deal of it. You don’t get someone working the event, you just calmly show the usurper your ticket, and then you make sure to say "thank you" just loud enough so everyone around you in the row knows to remember your face and to never, ever sit in your seat ever. I was very inspired and tweeted about this event and prayed I’d get an opportunity to stunt on a hater as well. After the Perry Ellis show, I walked with Skylar to his subway stop not realizing I had walked like six blocks in the opposite direction of my subway stop. I was soaking wet. Like, comically drenched. So I grabbed a cab and took a 3 hour long nap at my hotel to properly recover.

After my power nap, I realized it was still raining, but much less severely. The only problem was that I only packed suede shoes and despite preaching a diverse wardrobe, I only own suede shoes. I had to change because my sneakers were fucking thrashed, so I put on a pair of Wallabees, because the other two pairs of shoes cost so much money that I would probably have a deeper emotional response to them getting ruined in the rain. The other problem was that I saw Josh Peskowitz earlier and he was wearing Wallabees and I actually had a conversation with him. I didn’t want him to be like, “WHAT THE FUCK. THIS WEIRDO WENT HOME AND CHANGED INTO THE SAME SHOES AS ME?” But I wasn’t risking my George Cox creepers.

Somehow, I was able to soldier on past the indignity of my existence and rolled up into the Greg Lauren presentation. Which was v atmospheric. There was a boxing ring with models doing boxing things and, oh yeah, Tyson Beckford just standing in a divine light looking like a goddamn superhero. Everyone pointed out that he looks fucking amazing for someone 42 years old and then I think Jian and Woolf pointed out that I’m a decade younger than him, but look a decade older than him. I made a mental note to eat more than my fair share of whatever appetizer plate we would split at dinner later as revenge for this observation.

After the presentation, four thousand of us retired to a local drinking establishment to drink one beer and eat jalepeno poppers and mozzarella sticks. I don’t know what it was about this week, but we literally ate that exact meal every day. I’m pretty sure we single-handedly introduced Isaac of Larose Paris to the horrors of American cuisine in four short days. After that we had to go back to the main venue to take in Tim Coppens. We ordered up an Uber XL to be split eleventy ways. When I hopped in the SUV and noticed he had Dubble Bubble and Dum Dums and those wild old mints only grandpas like, I knew this was gonna be a good ride.

We broke the ice talking about the best places to buy Airheads in bulk and we roasted him a little on how Dubble Bubble is literally harder than igneous rock to chew. At this point Woolf, sitting shotgun, plugs his phone in and as we are all talking, our driver interjects with a “Oh, it’s lit?” like, I had never heard “it’s lit” used as an interrogative before. I look up and the driver is talking about how he loves to see what song starts playing when people plug their phone in and for Woolf it just so happened to be D’Angelo. Our driver turned up the volume and looked over at Jake and was like, “I don’t know if this is really some hanging out with the guys vibes right now,” and proceeded to fucking ROAST Woolf for the rest of the car ride. I knew the roast hand was strong in our driver because at a red light he looked over at Jake and was like, “You know I’m just fucking with you, right?” When people reiterate they are just kidding around to you, you are fucking done, mate.

But I relished in Woolf’s destruction too much and karma clapped back very quickly on me. At the Coppens show I got priority standing AKA "our priority is to make you a fucking pariah." I made the mistake of standing next to Lawrence, Skylar and Julien, who were seated. Julien introduced me to his co-workers—buyers at Barneys—and then somehow, before the show started, he told the story of my cane and Lawrence introducing me to everyone as Make A Wish child was told, and before I know it, even the Barneys employees were getting in on the action, burning me about my struggle status. I thirstily grabbed an open seat as the lights went down and plotted to give Barneys a scathing Yelp review.

Orley made me wake up early to catch their runway show, but I didn’t mind so much because it wasn’t raining and I was giving an outfit another test run. I had already worn the NdG piece on Tuesday, but seriously no one took my photo, so I basically didn’t even exist on Tuesday, and sometimes you gotta throw your pearls before the swine a couple times before they start to see and understand the vision. I ran into the inimitable Chris Black while waiting in line at Orley, and, thankfully, he didn’t point out how clammy I was. There was something about the combination of unseasonably warm and humid weather and me being completely overdressed that led to me relying heavily on vetiver-scented fragrances to hide the fact that I was a sweaty mess.

John Elliott’s show was next and I always like attending his shows. One, because they are always energetic and he shows something new every season but also because they always give me a really decent seat. This season, there were a bunch of people in my seat. I WAS GOING TO GET TO FUCKING DUNK ON THESE PRESUMPTUOUS FELLOWS. So I stand behind them and say, “Excuse me, sorry, yeah, I think I’m right here,” and show him my ticket. To which this guy just goes, “Oh hmmm,” and avoids eye contact. To which I was like, “Oh yeah?” and I promptly got an attendant and big-timed them in front of Victor Cruz and my homies. YEAH, RIGHT. I didn’t want to make a scene and the seats were on risers, so I just sat behind them.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur as I spent most of it imagining all of the dope ways I could’ve stunted at John Elliott, but didn’t. I almost copped a coaches jacket at Concepts to console myself.

The highlight of the afternoon was Matthew Henson walking a block out of his away to avoid being caught in my wave of washedness, but THE JOKES ON YOU, MATTHEW. This night ended in several beers, a completely destroyed Rubik’s cube, Cool Ranch Doritos, and lamenting very loudly that everyone thought my very dope archival Nom de Guerre jacket/vest/sweatshirt thing was just that Zara coat with the fake leather sleeves.

New York Fashion Week: Men’s A/W ’16 has come and gone. Four Pins is over. My street style career is over. Remember the perfect week I had a few seasons ago; recall that I went five for five. Remember that it was Tommy shooting. Make a 30 for 30 on my wasted potential. Remember I had jawnz.

Can’t wait till next year, I’m gonna She’s All That you guys—get contacts and get handsome, and the CFDA just won’t know what to do with me.