Fashion Backstage Quotes

I’d walked in my first—and most likely last—New York Fashion Week show and I could hardly wrap my head around the insanity of it. I’d been sewn into a dress, had my makeup done and my hair professionally styled, and then they’d shoved me out from backstage like a mama bird pushing her baby bird out of the nest…and I’d SOARED.

Who do you think is angriest right now? In our country, I mean.” I shrugged. “African Americans?” She made a buzzing noise, a sort of you’re-out-but-we’ve-got-some-lovely-consolation-prizes-backstage kind of a sound. “Guess again.” “Gays?” “No, you dope. The straight white dude. He’s angry as shit. He feels emasculated.” “Honestly, Jacko.” “Of course he does.” Jackie pointed a purple fingernail at me. “You just wait. It’s gonna be a different world in a few years if we don’t do something to change it. Expanding Bible Belt, shit-ass representation in Congress, and a pack of power-hungry little boys who are tired of being told they gotta be more sensitive.” She laughed then, a wicked laugh that shook her whole body. “And don’t think they’ll all be men. The Becky Homeckies will be on their side.” “The who?” Jackie nodded at my sweats and bed-matted hair, at the pile of yesterday’s dishes in the sink, and finally at her own outfit. It was one of the more interesting fashion creations I’d seen on her in a while—paisley leggings, an oversized crocheted sweater that used to be beige but had now taken on the color of various other articles of clothing, and purple stiletto boots. “The Susie Homemakers. Those girls in matching skirts and sweaters and sensible shoes going for their Mrs. degrees. You think they like our sort? Think again.

In July 1964 an alleged incident involving Paco Rabanne rocked the model community to its foundations. The innovative Spanish-born designer had used black beauties in his Paris show to model his futuristic plastic dresses, a move that enraged the American fashion press. According to Rabanne in Barbara Summers’s book Skin Deep, things got out of hand backstage after the show. ‘I watched them coming,’ he said, ‘the girls from American Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. “Why did you do that?” they said. “You don’t have the right to do that, to take those kind of girls. Fashion is for us, white people.” They spat in my face. I had to wipe it off.’ Rabanne was subsequently blacklisted by the fashion cartels until black runway models finally became chic in the 1970s.

know, in one week we are supposed to have our annual bake sale,” I was very excitified. But when she added, “However, it has come to my attention that this year it will not be taking place,” my ears were so shocktified that tears almost spilled out of them. This was the worst news in the history of forever. It was the opposite of exciting. It was tragical is what it was, and that is not an opinion. But then she continued, “Instead, this year we’re going to do something entirely different, but no less wonderful. Children ... ,” she said, getting very quiet so that things got suspensiful, “we’re going to put on a fashion show!” That is when everyone in my class went into an uproar, and Mrs. Pellington was so happy, she didn’t even clap at our faces for quiet. “It will be a mother-daughter fashion show with special backstage jobs for the boys,” she said, which was the exact sentence that almost made my head fall off. It is a scientific fact that I have always wanted to be in a fashion show with my mother, even if it was something I had never known I’d wanted until just that second.

Not anymore,” Gareth whispered so as not to be heard by the Vamps still milling around backstage. “You are now part of my Asian Dominion—new members of the Guardian’s House.

Ned Sherrin Ned Sherrin is a satirist, novelist, anthologist, film producer, and celebrated theater director who has been at the heart of British broadcasting and the arts for more than fifty years. I had met Diana, Princess of Wales--perhaps “I had been presented to” is more accurate--in lineups after charity shows that I had been compering and at which she was the royal guest of honor. There were the usual polite exchanges. On royal visits backstage, Princess Alexandra was the most relaxed, on occasion wickedly suggesting that she caught a glimpse of romantic chemistry between two performers and setting off giggles. Princess Margaret was the most artistically acute, the Queen the most conscientious; although she did once sweep past me to get to Bill Haley, of whom she was a fan. Prince Edward could, at one time, be persuaded to do an irreverent impression of his older brother, Prince Charles. Princess Diana seemed to enjoy herself, but she was still new to the job and did not linger down the line. Around this time, a friend of mine opened a restaurant in London. From one conversation, I gathered that although it was packed in the evenings, business was slow at lunchtime. Soon afterward, I got a very “cloak-and-dagger” phone call from him. He spoke in hushed tones, muttering something like “Lunch next Wednesday, small party, royal person, hush-hush.” From this, I inferred that he wanted me and, I had no doubt, other friends to bring a small party to dress the restaurant, to which he was bringing the “royal person” in a bid to up its fashionable appeal during the day. When Wednesday dawned, the luncheon clashed with a couple of meetings, and although feeling disloyal, I did not see how I was going to be able to round up three or four people--even for a free lunch. Guiltily, I rang his office and apologized profusely to his secretary for not being able to make it. The next morning, he telephoned, puzzled and aggrieved. “There were only going to be the four of us,” he said. “Princess Diana had been looking forward to meeting you properly. She was very disappointed that you couldn’t make it.” I felt suitably stupid--but, as luck had it, a few weeks later I found myself sitting next to her at a charity dinner at the Garrick Club. I explained the whole disastrous misunderstanding, and we had a very jolly time laughing at the coincidence that she was dining at this exclusive club before her husband, who had just been elected a member with some publicity. Prince Charles was in the hospital at the time recuperating from a polo injury. Although hindsight tells us that the marriage was already in difficulties, that was not generally known, so in answer to my inquiries, she replied sympathetically that he was recovering well. We talked a lot about the theater and her faux pas some years before when she had been to Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and confessed to the star, Penelope Keith, that it was the first Coward play that she had seen. “The first,” said Penelope, shocked. “Well,” Diana said to me, “I was only eighteen!” Our meeting was at the height of the AIDS crisis, and as we were both working a lot for AIDS charities, we had many notes to compare and friends to mourn. The evening ended with a dance--but being no Travolta myself, I doubt that my partnering was the high point for her.