Thursday marked the opening of New York Fashion Week, which is running Sept. 10-17, when everything’s a bit more fabulous than usual. In 2004, the Slate staff found itself perplexed by the semiannual event: Is Fashion Week, as one editor put it, “a snooty scam perpetrated by New Yorkers on poor slobs elsewhere”? Or is it an occasion for designers to present their artistic ideas and try to influence taste? We asked Josh Patner—fashion journalist, former assistant designer for Donna Karan, and co-founder of the popular label Tuleh—to answer these and other burning questions. First, he explained the basics of Fashion Week. Then, in a second installment from 2005, he answered more of our queries: Where do models learn their walk? Are refreshments served? Do models diet, or do they just have “fast metabolisms”? And can you boo at a fashion show?
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