Forever Fan

One look at my Instagram feed over the last few days and it can seem like a tiresome string of “humblebrag” posts. I’ve just returned from a surreal three day trip in New York, beginning with the Dior pre-party for young art collectors at The Guggenheim (Dior has sponsored Guggenheim’s International Gala for a second year) featuring The xx and ending with an intimate Louis Vuitton dinner to fete all the iconoclasts who took part in their Celebrating Monogram project.  In between the short and pithy captions and the starry images though, is a personally awkward thought process, which oscillates from mild fear to panic to embarrassment – feelings that important folks of the industry probably don’t experience because they’re used to bumping into the likes of Raf Simons and Nicolas Ghesquière and saying “Hi!” to them like they’re an old friend or having intelligent conversations with CEO’s like Bernard Arnault and Sidney Toledano without feeling like an imposting oik.    

On the plane journey back, I thought about the reason why it was that every time I attend these big shebangs, why I get clammy hands, fumble over sentences and in general am not fully at ease or reconciled with the fact that I’m there.  I’m simply too much of a fan.  As in, I can’t ever objectively step back and take everything in my stride.  Everything is either obscenely surreal and like an out-of-body experience.  Or I want to quiz people about the how, the why and the ins and outs of what it is they do because I’m faced with personal heroes, when all they want to do in these social situations is have a drink of champagne and a cig.  I don’t quite know how to act around people that I’ve done extensive Google searches on, written eulogistic blog posts on, or geeked about on The Fashion Spot.  There lies one of the main critiques of fashion blogging that the likes of Cathy Horyn and Suzy Menkes have commented on in the past – that we’re too “close” to the subject at hand.

And yet measuring “closeness” is a difficult thing.  My friends, who I brought with me to the Dior party may have gawped, as Raf Simons came over for a quick kiss ‘n’ greet, but despite having interviewed him on a few occasions, I know that I’m when I’m speaking to him, my voice goes a tone or two higher because I’m screeching inside my head and pre-thinking sentences and practising them in my head, because I don’t want to sound like an idiot.   It’s a psychological distance because of the feeling of awe around a number of designers, stylists, photographers , who were instrumental to forming my fashion self-education (as opposed to bona fide celebrities who I don’t get half as fazed by…).  Perhaps the intense love and adulation is what prevents me from developing that all-important objective critique glare, which is what makes the fashion critics so great at what they do.

Wearing Dior quilted top, skirt and bag and sandals  w/ Claire Barrow jacket

Raf Simons in his own excellent AW14-5 Sterling Ruby collabo gear w/ The xx all wearing Dior/Dior Homme – odd that Jamie xx was just standing there two feet away when just last week, I was dancing hard fuelled by Red Bull and glow sticks to his banging two hour-long set at Pitchfork Paris.  

The xx performing in the Guggenheim’s rotunda

Incredible venue set up last night for @the_xx_ @dior @guggenheim #GIG2014

A video posted by Susie Lau (@susiebubble) on Nov 11, 2014 at 4:12am PST

White balloon installation by Otto Piene in the rotunda of @guggenheim A video posted by @susiebubblevid on Nov 11, 2014 at 6:27am PST

Then the longer I thought about it on the way home, the more I wanted to hold on to that feeling of “fandom”.  If seeing the industry up close has taught me anything, it’s that it’s all too easy to become jaded and tired of the incredible opportunities that are afforded to us.  I like squealing over things like gradiated ink on an invite (mad props to the calligrapher who wrote out the invites to the Louis Vuitton dinner) or monogrammed napkins.  I like collecting up all the paraphernalia, that some people perhaps leave behind in their hotel rooms.  But most of all, it’s the excitement and enthusiasm I want to retain when occasions really warrant it.

Portrait of the Louis Vuitton iconoclasts by Jean-Phillipe Delhomme

Julien David net top and skirt, Jil Sander x Uniqlo poloneck, Balenciaga skirt, Louis Vuitton boots and Louis Vuitton Celebrating Monogram x Cindy Sherman bag

Louis Vuitton’s Celebrating Monogram dinner held in the garden of MOMA was such an occasion.  Apologies if my photos of the evening are “impressionistic” at best, but that’s part and parcel of being overwhelmed by the gravitas of the event.  Thankfully Patrick Demarchelier had set up a studio next to the dinner so that all the starry guests could pop in to pose with their initials…

Five out of six certainly ain’t bad as a turnout for Louis Vuitton’s iconoclasts.  In an intimate guest list of 160 people, the likes of Frank Gehry, Karl Lagerfeld, Cindy Sherman, Christian Louboutin and Marc Newson would pop up every time you turned around.  We, the journalists, were encouraged to make an informal approach and self-introduction but awkward me only managed to squawk “Hi, I love your work!” to Sherman and smile weakly at Gehry and Lagerfeld (they smiled back… or maybe they were smiling at everyone…?).  Michael Burke, CEO of Louis Vuitton in his dinner speech made a joke about Rei Kawakubo’s absence, calling her the “master of nothingness”.  Lord knows what I would have done if Rei was within spitting distance.  Jelly legs, strange wheezing noises and the shakes come to mind.  Best leave that encounter for another time when there isn’t all this immense amount of iconoclasm floating around.  As for the man of the hour, Nicolas Ghesquière himself – after writing a 2,000 word opinion piece about the start of his tenure at Louis Vuitton for Pop magazine last season, I was all ready to extend a hand, tell him who I am and at least say hello.  He beat me to the punch and proactively said “Hi!” but flitted off before I could say anything else.  He was probably just saying hi to everyone to be polite because that’s what you do at fash-on dinner parties.  Or maybe he does vaguely know of my existence?  I don’t know…  And here I am dorkily analysing every brief encounter – 100% not cool, and not that professional either.

And yet, that dorky unprofesh side to me is something I want to hold onto in a weird way.  I don’t want to walk into these dinners and be all nonchalant about the fact that Karl Lagerfeld and the like are standing there having a drink.  That excitement and giddiness is what has fuelled the 5,000 posts or so on this blog.  It comes from that feeling of being a fashion outsider.  Now I’ve come to the point where I think there there needs to be a balance to be struck between feeling like an interloper and feeling like I belong.  Or as a gaffe at the dinner table proved (I made the mistake of asking a rich socialite/client what it is she does, and she laughed and said “Nothing…”), perhaps I never will.

Oh look, there’s an Olson twin hanging out behind Karl Lagerfeld and Frank Gehry!

Delphine Arnault, Patrick Demarchelier with Frank Gehry, Karl Lagerfeld, Cindy Sherman, Christian Louboutin and Marc Newson

On a fashion fan-girling note, it was cool to see the SS15 collection seen in action on many of the guests such as Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chloë Sevigny and Miranda Kerr.

I was mightily impressed that MOMA moved their sculptures so that Louis  Vuitton could build their dinner pavilion in the garden complete with giant neon monograms.

And finally some footnotes to add to the Louis Vuitton Celebrating Monogram collection, which I already explored in full here…

… there is SO much more to the Cindy Sherman messenger bag than you see at first glance.  In total there are nine badges dotted around the bag, including one that peeks at you from inside the front pocket, each one a stitched up remix of Sherman’s intriguing portraits.  It’s the bag from the collection which I’d personally plough my own moolah into for the sole reason that it packs a lot of visual punch into one singular piece.

A @flipagram view of all nine brilliant badges on the Cindy Sherman @louisvuitton messenger bag #celebratingmonogram Music: Jamie xx – Girl

A video posted by Susie Lau (@susiebubble) on Nov 11, 2014 at 7:07am PST

… to add to the Rizzoli coffee table book pile is a new one coming out in February 2015, entirely dedicated to the Celebrating Monogram collection, with foreword by Jo-Ann Furniss, to a physical summation of the campaign images, words from each iconoclast and film stills from the collaborative videos…