Inside Style - London Fashion Week

Inside Style  by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner - September 9th

London Fashion Week.  Only one week until the plastic is peeled back off the Somerset House catwalks. Excited, moi? But of course. I’ve got my hotel and flight booked, press badge sorted and tickets requests filed. Now, all I have to do is summon up the courage to open that prodigious stack of envelopes and see just where I’m sitting...or standing.

You see, there are two letters that represent social suicide during Fashion Week. Behold 'ST' written on any show invitation and you'll soon know your place in the style set. No, it's not short for 'stylish'. What was once a loaded term used for buying feminine hygiene products has become fashion speak for 'standing'. And no fashionista likes to stand; much less in heels. But the sting of being seatless doesn't smart half as much as the Darwinistic dig which the abbreviation represents. It may as well read 'Sorry, who are you?'

2010 has already proven a rocky one for my own sartorial standing. Although, the registration desk at the AW 10 presentations did try to sign me in as Erin O'Connor (a mistake I was prepared to let slip), I've got some serious networking (or sucking up) to do to ingratiate myself into the world of goody bags and camera flashes. Maybe it's because I missed the previous season, or that the shows have relocated to the bijou Somerset House venue but an unenviable number of my tickets last February bore the dreaded 'ST' mark. How rude. Don't they know who I am? I guess not.

This kind of carry on wouldn’t happen to Tavi (www.thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com). Then again my blogging brethren is nearly twenty-five years my junior (sting!) and therefore of wunderkind status; as is Racked.com’s five-year old guest fashion correspondent Katie – both of whom have graced fashion week’s front rows. Grr....

Still, there’s no point whinging. I’m nothing but resourceful and have been plotting my own set of tactics to re-brand myself as a ‘F-rower’. If impersonating Erin, stealing seating plans from PR girls or kidnapping Hilary Alexander doesn’t work, I might just bring along my bespectacled five year old niece. Youth seems to be the only bargaining chip worth its weight when dealing with the fash pack. On second thoughts, maybe I’ll just leave her at home. That cutie pie would just steal my thunder.