By Invitation Only: Hysterics at Heatherette

Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on February 7, 2007

Throngs of near-hysterical people waved meaningless pieces of white paper in the faces of security guards on the steps outside of the tents at Bryant Park on Tuesday night, February 6, the site of many shows during New York fashion week. But it wasn’t enough to get them past the barricades and into the Heatherette show, which has become one of the most circus-like shows on the fashion calendar.

It wasn’t fall fashion that Heatherette hungry people were hoping to witness. Rather, they were hoping to catch a glimpse of a celebrity – or see and be seen – as though they were at a hot Manhattan nightclub and not at an industry press event.

But, as most in the industry know, it’s not about the clothes at Heatherette, designed by Richie Rich and Traver Rains – there were practically no wearable or saleable looks on display Tuesday night, save for a few of their moneymaking items like embellished denim and scarf print dresses made for department store clients like Bergdorf Goodman, one of the few members of the industry we saw in the audience. It’s about the entertainment.

As if to underscore this, the theme of Heatherette’s show was “The Wizard of Oz,” though what this had to do with the collection, which could only be described as “tired club kids with a glue gun gone wild in the fabric trash bins of the garment district” – is anyone’s guess.

These looks, worn by both guys and girls, were the supposed Heatherette “couture” showpieces that will never be sold but one assumes are meant to reinforce the fabulousness of the brand in order to push the jeans, t-shirts and prom dresses. But instead, they were an embarassment of embellishment and didn’t look like the work of designers who have been at this for nearly a decade – since 1999, when their first line of customized tees was snatched up by Patricia Field, the premier destination for their brand of glittery wares. They looked like the result of overworked students scrambling at the stroke of midnight to finish a project due the next day.

Not that audience minded, or cared. They screamed, as though at a rock concert, when the painfully loud voice of Oz came on over the speakers – make that Richie Rich – boomed “You are here, at the hottest ticket in town!” before four white clad dancers wearing glow sticks came out like trolls down the runway underneath a black light. It was exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from designers whose nightlife glory days were during the early ’90s rave era.

No Heatherette show would be complete without a celebrity catwalker or two, and this time Lydia Hearst came out in a cute Dorothy-inspired blue gingham tulip baby-doll dress and ruby red slippers, followed by the beaming Baby Phat designer and former model Kimora Lee Simmons, as a front row consisting of Amber Tamblyn, Kelly Rowland, Cuba Gooding Jr., JC Chasez, Kimberly Stewart, Vivica A. Fox and Alan Cumming looked on.

In one of the sweeter moments of the show, several young ballerinas came out to perform a scene straight out of “The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy first lands in Oz and is greeted by Munchkins and Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, who was played by Heatherette poster girl Amanda Lepore.

The final walk at the end of the show had models wearing t-shirts with various lines from the “Wizard of Oz” printed in block letters, such as “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” and “I’ll Get Your Pretty Little Dog Toto, Too.”

Far from refined or from being one of fashion’s groundbreaking moments – or even Heatherette’s, for that matter, whose previous shows have featured more cohesive executions of their themes, whether it’s Gotham, the circus or baby dolls – it was certainly a New York moment and the kind of thing that is turning fashion week, for better or for worse, into a must-attend event.