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Celebs Stealing Fashion's Flashbulbs NEW YORK - Fashion designers love it when celebrities wear their clothes on the red carpet - and celebrities love getting fabulous outfits from the designers. But Hollywood stars and music divas stole some of the spotlight at New York Fashion Week, prompting some observers to ask: Is a catfight brewing on the catwalk? The main complaints: celebrities can cause an undue delay to the start of a show by attracting swarms of paparazzi or by arriving late. Celebrities at New York Fashion Week are nothing new, said Suze Yalof Schwartz, Glamour's executive fashion editor at large, but the growing number of paparazzi and entourages have made it harder to deal with. "Celebrities come to support the designers who give them free clothes, and some (celebrities) are even paid to go," Schwartz said. "The key is for them to stand at the end of the runway, pose once for the paparazzi, make sure the photographers get their glamour shot and then be done." "It's someone like Janet Jackson who was trying to avoid the paparazzi (at the Bill Blass show) who makes it difficult for the editors who have to get to their seats and have a job to do," she said. Marc Jacobs' shows - one of the hottest tickets in town - are known for attracting celebrities. And his shows have a reputation for being particularly tardy. At this year's fall preview, however, the wait seemed particularly lengthy. Uma Thurman arrived nearly on time and waited on the cramped bleachers with everyone else. But when Beyonce and her boyfriend, Jay-Z, took their seats, they were met with boos from photographers. Afterward, there was speculation the show had started late not because of the celebrity attendees but because the clothes were still being sewn. At that point, however, no one seemed to care, mainly because Jacobs' collection of trapeze silhouettes and mid-calf pants garnered mixed reviews at best. There was a similar scene at Zac Posen's show. His front row included Claire Danes, Ashley Olsen, Bette Midler and hip-hop mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Posen's business partner. However, the buzz that followed was positive because spectators said Posen's designs had been worth the wait. Perhaps as annoying is the buzz that celebrities get when they present their own collections, often distracting the media from other designers. Schwartz noted that The New York Times printed a lengthy preview of Jennifer Lopez's runway debut on Friday, but not a single word about Vera Wang's collection that had graced the runway the previous day. She feared the same fate for Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren, who were showing their fall looks just hours before Lopez. "If there's space for one story ... it's going to be J.Lo," Schwartz said. Lopez's show created the biggest buzz of the week. Photographers assigned to shoot the collection were instructed to arrive more than two hours early, and no one expected the first model to step out on the runway at the scheduled start time. Many of the out-of-town newspaper fashion editors who report on runway trends were locked out of the show. However, some who received an invitation acknowledged they were at least a tiny bit excited to see Lopez take her bow. Should it matter to Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa that more people will likely see a photo of Katie Holmes sitting at the show than a photo of his stunning black cashmere-sequin strapless dress with a grid pattern? No, says Schwartz, because Holmes changed out of her clothes and into a Costa creation before she took her seat. Schwartz said she was disappointed in the caliber of stars at this week's previews. She noted that while Renee Zellweger was at Carolina Herrera, "it's mostly been the B, C and D list." |
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