Fashionweek madness

Twice a year, clothing stress hits many fashion enthusiasts. Because what is more important in life than getting your street style photo taken outside one of the big fashion shows? Whether you actually received an invitation for that show and thus admired the spectacle up close doesn't really matter. As long as you are shot outside, busy on the phone or hailing a taxi, by one of the many street style photographers. Fashion month is a challenging and exhausting month for visitors. You have to run from show to show and also prepare a lot of different outfits. No way you can appear in the same top twice. But it's also a month of sleepless nights, testing your stamina, frustration, and tears for the models.

Sleepless nights

There is a whole process that precedes the shows. The models need to be cast, judged, and fitted. On one day, you can easily be sent to 20 castings. No way you can make it to all of them, but that doesn't really matter. At each casting, there are at least 50 girls waiting for you who also have to go to 15 other castings. Everyone is constantly checking their phone for the time, the fastest route, or emails from your agency. It can happen that you have to go back to a brand for a callback or fitting halfway through the day. Just when you thought you had mapped out your schedule a bit, such an email can throw your entire planning into disarray. A callback or fitting means that you are one step closer to the show, and that always takes precedence. As you can imagine, everything runs late on these kinds of days. Therefore, it's not strange to be waiting at your fitting at 1 AM. You just have to not think about the fact that you have a call time at 5 AM the next day.

Testing your stamina

Since you are always short on time, the trick is to minimize your travel time as much as possible. Often this means: running!!! Not only from the subway to the address, but it's also handy to climb the stairs to the casting as quickly as possible, so you are three girls ahead in line. It's exhausting to race around like a headless chicken all day, but the girls do it with heels and a heavy portfolio in their bag. Just imagine how you must feel when you hardly sleep more than five hours a night. Once you arrive at the casting, you need to look as polished as possible to impress the casting director.

Frustration and tears

Just assume that a fashion week mainly consists of failure. The failure of not making it to your castings, the failure of missing a callback, the failure of the casting outfit, the failure of a missed email, and the worst of all: the failure of booking your show. If you walk into any modeling agency during madness month, you will always find a sobbing model.

Fashion month is hardcore. It's running, flying, falling, getting up, and going on again. Some girls book 60 shows, but there are many who don't walk a single show. Many have sky-high expectations and ultimately have to settle for a presentation of an unknown off-schedule brand. That's fine, but if you dream of a Prada exclusive, that's a tough pill to swallow.

So why do models go through such hell? The small glimmer of hope to shine on the catwalk in a Gucci outfit will keep you going. Good luck to all the fighters out there!

XX Kisses from Lily XX