Intelligencer

A Fashion Week Bicycle Thief

Stylist snags Rowley’s wheels.

By Jada Yuan
Published Sep 17, 2007

(Photo: Thomas Concordia/WireImage )

Designer Cynthia Rowley’s Fashion Week show ended with models biking down the runway, but one bike never came back. “I know who stole it, but I can’t say,” Rowley told us later in the week. “Okay, my stylist, Sally White, stole the bike.” White was an obvious suspect. The inspiration for Rowley’s bike-themed collection, she’s “almost six feet tall, and she rides her bike all around town wearing giant platform heels and little short chiffon dresses,” Rowley says. Since then, “she’s been all over town with it,” according to Rowley, appearing at Marc Jacobs’s and Ralph Lauren’s shows. White, reached by phone while—what else?—riding her new bike, was aghast. “What does she mean? Like I just stole it? Lies!” White says her old bike broke down and Rowley told her she could take one after the show. (She grants she may not have had proper clearance that night; she rode off while Rowley was doing interviews.) White proudly lists other shows the bike attended: Bill Blass, Narciso Rodriguez, Anna Sui. And Rowley is willing to let go. “Oh, Sally can have the bike,” she says. “She did a good job.”