Joan Jett and Amber Tamblyn.Photo: Getty Images
She may have just decried all the Fashion Week runway shows as “bullshit,” but that apparently hasn’t stopped Amber Tamblyn from frolicking in this fetid dung heap. She and a friend soldiered through the shallow experience of sitting front row at Anna Sui on Wednesday night, even going so far as to waltz to their seats in what looked like chipper moods. Perhaps when they pre-partied backstage, they upgraded to absinthe from the weak-ass bourbon she reportedly swilled before Max Azria.
Wading through the excrement alongside Tamblyn: Todd Oldham and Carmen Electra, who also boogied her way out from the behind the Anna Sui backdrop. (Seriously, what were they serving back there? Shots of Bacardi 151?) Electra had rocker Joan Jett in tow, the sight of whom thrilled Tamblyn so much that she barreled straight past Electra in order to pose with her arms wrapped around the old-school rocker and then stepped over and ignored Electra again as she walked back to her seat. There’s nothing as amusing as watching one celebrity plow over another in order to get to someone they like better. It’s like proof positive that even in the fishbowl, there’s a food chain, and poor old Carmen is not so different from the Taco Bell food she hawks: a quick and dirty fix when there’s no time for anything better. We were also surprised at how stiff and almost plastic her face looks in person, although her dress was adorable and she’s still undeniably a dish.
Russell Simmons and Rev. Run sneaked in late, the latter dressed in a slightly less holy yet totally glorious floor-length fur coat. Evidently he goes saintly for Betsey but naughty for Sui, who in many ways is Betsey’s less-girlie punk counterpart. The collection was as fun and loud as ever, although we’re not sure we’re ready for an era in which people flit about in oversize, sequined bathing caps. Still, even with a whopping 56 looks sauntering down the runway on models who’d clearly been instructed to knead their facial muscles into something approximating a smile, Sui’s tastefully batty designs won her loud whoops and a booming ovation from the crowd.
But when the dust settled, we realized there were still all too few famous flies buzzing around the bullshit factory, to borrow Tamblyn’s cynicism. It’s gotten to the point where we are hallucinating faces among the teeming masses — people like Suzanne Somers, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jim Belushi, who appear clear as day for a split second and then morph back into who they really are. We were never so grossly wrong as with the bundled woman we initially mistook for Belushi. Sorry, ma’am.
Seriously, though, let’s examine how unfair that is: Belushi? Really? No Kiefer, no Dempsey, no Gosling? Even our Fashion Week delusions can’t muster up anyone fabulous. And so we’re left shuffling sadly out of show after show, quietly mourning our inability to make Joan Collins appear out of thin air. —The Fug Girls
Watch a slideshow of the Anna Sui collection.
Watch video of the Anna Sui show.
