At a distance, it all looks so amenable, doesn’t it? The smiles, the glossy hair, the stiff, elaborately calligraphied invitations clasped firmly in hand.
Ah yes, the Front Row club do like to look so effortlessly sophisticated.
I once heard a fashion designer describe the seating plan at his shows as ‘organic’ but, believe me, it’s anything but. The etiquette of who sits where is more carefully choreographed and elitist than any dinner at Downton Abbey. If you have a standing ticket, you are less than undesirable, probably worse than someone who wasn’t invited at all. If you are front row, on the other hand, you have arrived. More importantly, you are seen to have arrived.
Front rows are reserved for editors of magazines (cool fashion ones, not Woman’s Realm), their fashion directors, buyers from the big stores and, increasingly, celebrity fans of the label. It’s a hedonistic mix, with a rigid pecking order you challenge at your own peril.
The advantages of being in the front row? You inevitably get better freebies left on your chair (a one-off box of different Chanel scents was the best I ever got: it came in a cashmere wrap). You get a closer view of the models’ blisters and thread veins, too, which is always heartening.
You also, occasionally, get to plonk your bones next to a celebrity, which always begs the question whether you should talk to them or not.
I always find it hilarious to watch American Vogue editor Anna Wintour sat next to a rapper in New York she has clearly never heard of.
I love it, too, when the (male) photographers at the end of the catwalk start shouting at all these powerful women, telling them to uncross their legs and ‘move the bloody bags’ because they’re in frame, which always results in a few hot tears that threaten to dislodge the Flutter lash extensions.
What I find striking is that the cast of celebrities changes almost as regularly as the clothes, while the (mainly) women who run the industry reappear, year in, year out, holding on to their gilt chair with such a vice-like grip their knuckles turn white. To be relegated to row two is the fashion equivalent of being culled: your career is over.
But the favour works both ways: if an editor doesn’t turn up to her seat (Jo Elvin, editor of Glamour, was a no-show at Vivienne Westwood — I know, because I sat in her seat one along from Pamela Anderson) I expect she received a stern phone call the next morning.
In Milan, the front row is taken so seriously, many designers video it. After an Armani show, when I almost fell asleep, I was called by the PR and roundly ticked off for not applauding.
It might be entertaining, but is all this front-row action good for business? While designers will deny paying for celebrity patronage, the stars do not get out of bed in time for a 10am show on a Sunday (the Mulberry slot at Claridge’s) for a stick of rock. The star either has a contract with the brand, which obliges them to turn up, or is bribed with a free stay in a hotel, first-class flights, clothes and so on.
This practice was started by the late Gianni Versace (the rock star Prince told me he turned up at the show in Paris because the designer put him up in the Ritz). But rather than help the brand, the stars can often be a distraction. I was so excited to be sat front row next to Justin Timberlake at the Oscar de La Renta show, I forgot to look at the clothes.
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