This doesn’t actually happen here during Montreal Fashion Week.

People are always curious to know what it feels like to attend fashion shows during Fashion Week. As many of you know, Fashion Week is reserved for designers, buyers, VIP clients like the rich and famous, and of course the media blitz of cameras, editors, reporters and journalists. It’s a huge media event and every one wants in on the action of the glitz and glamour.

A long time dream of mine was to attend such a coveted event, and it has come true just last fall. I will share with you a brief scoop of my first experience at Montreal Fashion Week last fall as a writer for Gloss. This will probably dispel a lot of misconceptions of what Fashion Week really is.

Media Coverage
Working for a magazine, newspaper or television requires media accreditation, which means getting a media pass to attend Fashion Week. There are forms to fill out and background checks are done to make sure that the people applying to be media are legitimate. Because most collections are not ready for public distribution and they want to reduce the risk of knock offs taking place before they’re able to deliver the goods. This is why Fashion Weeks are held 6 months prior to the actual season to give time for manufacturers to produce the collections for retail, as well as giving magazines time to spruce up their Fall or Spring issues.

Once you get your pass, you’re bombarded with folders containing press releases from each designer, inauguration meetings, cocktail hours, and a lot of schmoozing. Fashion Week isn’t held in one single venue specifically, there were many off site events going on during the week, some held their own fashion shows in their private boutiques, and there were a lot of after parties in the hippest clubs.

Not So Fun
The most unglamorous part of attending Fashion Week is the waiting. For Montreal, the fashion shows are surprisingly brief, approximately 20mins or less each, and we had to wait at least an hour before the next show. Attending 4-5 shows a day is actually pretty exhausting and you end up feeling like being huddled around like cattle to take your seat inside the showroom. There are long lineups, and if you don’t know anybody there, it’s pretty boring.

Champagne at 11AM and Freebies
To compensate, the industry is cajoled in getting free food, free drinks, free items to make the experience more enjoyable. In my case, our people were showered with little cocktail bottles of tequila or flutes of champagne, we were served hors d’oeuvres of sushi speared with a pipette filled with liquid wasabi, and got a free mouse pad from P&G Beaute. Some fashion shows offered their front row seaters goodie bags containing all kinds of things from scarves, beer, organic soap, chocolates and more. I attended an opening party for E.R.A. Vintagewear and came home with a bag full of Pantene hair products and makeup.

Know Your Place
Seats are assigned according to how important you are. If you were working for the bigger magazines and newspapers, you get to sit in the front row. In my case, a peculiar thing happened. Since many of the designers during Montreal Fashion Week were new or less popular, not all of the front row seats were taken, so some of us sitting one or two rows back were bumped up to the front row. A bonus! But if you were attending of the bigger shows like Marie Saint Pierre, you’d be lucky if you even had a chair to sit in!

Watching the shows themselves is such an exciting thing to experience. But like many other media people, virtually everyone had a pen and notepad on their laps, scribbling furiously what they were seeing. It’s hard to describe in so few words an entire collection, let alone remember every single outfit. And at the end of every show, you sort of wonder what the big hooplah is about for experiencing excitement for a mere 20 mins.

Overall, attending Fashion Week is surprisingly short fused. You get your high for just a little bit and then have to deal with the superficial socializing the rest of the time, albeit eating good food and getting goodies. A good lesson to learn is to pick and choose which shows you want to attend. If Montreal Fashion Week grows over the years, it would be impossible to attend every single show, hence why the big designers are always the most coveted shows. It’s an unforgettable experience and one can only hope to graduate to the big leagues one day, just to see what it’s like