True Life: I Took My 47-Year-Old Stepmom to Fashion Week

Not your mama’s Lacoste: A revealing spandex dress from the recent runway. Photo: Getty Images

“What do I wear?!” my stepmother excitedly texted me after I told her she could be my plus one to a fashion show. Since I started attending runway presentations a few years ago, she’s dropped not-so-subtle hints that if I ever got an extra ticket, she’d really like to come. “I’ve never been and have lived in or near New York for nearly 20 years,” she said. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

I might work for a fashion site—but I hate going to fashion shows. While my peers skip food, sleep, and, I swear, even breathing for two months of the year to travel from New York to Europe and take in the new collections, I don’t understand the hype. I prefer to get my work done at my desk, watch the livestreams from my laptop, and follow along on social media. So was I the best person for my stepmother to have as her escort? Probably not. I don’t peacock for street style photographers; my iPhone pictures are always blurry; and I get seated so far away from the front row that I usually don’t even know who’s in it until I check Instagram afterwards. Still, she responded to my invitation with multiple exclamation points and emojis and started planning her outfit days before Saturday’s 10 AM curtain call.

Morning of, my 47-year-old parent left me a hysterical voicemail. I was still in bed, she was having a mild panic attack picking out an #OOTD. I met her at Starbucks 15 minutes before the show started and was relieved to see she looked like herself, not trying too hard in a pair of white flare jeans, wedge sandals, a loose-fitting tank top, and layers of hippie beads. I looked like I had just rolled out of bed—because I had. If anyone was to guess the credentialed editor, 100 percent of people would certainly choose her.

With our coffees in hand, we walked to Spring Studios. Being a parent, she chastised me for making us late by making a wrong turn and would therefore miss the Lacoste show; I assured her that in the history of fashion shows, only Marc Jacobs had ever started on time.

Singer Madison Beer in a Lacoste ensemble. She was sitting in front of us but we had no idea. Photo: Getty Images

The line twisted down the block, pulsing with women dressed in impossibly high heels, mismatched patterns, and too many layers for the muggy heat. “This is amazing people watching,” she said. We made our way to our fourth row seats, where lightbulbs flashed in front of us for a celebrity no one recognized.

Inspired by the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next August — the French delegation will be outfitted by Lacoste — models strutted out first in red, white, and navy blue separates, but the classic inspiration quickly took a turn towards the avant garde with spandex jumpsuits, backpacks with detachable rain jackets, and hats with trains. “Who’s the designer?” my step-mom asked midway through, stretching her long arms above the other iPhones to snap some pics herself. “Because this definitely isn’t the Lacoste I grew up with.”

Of the 49 looks, half for women, half for men, but many probably unisex, she’d only wear a rain coat. “The majority of the outfits seemed impractical and theatrical — though perhaps that was the whole point and I completely missed it,” she reflected during a post-mortem. “If the goal is to sell the line, I don’t see the phones ringing off the hook, or knockoffs at Target any time soon.”

IPhone photo from our fourth row seats.

But her most interesting observations as a first-time fashion show attendee didn’t have anything to do with the designs. “As a fit, health-conscious, athletic, middle-aged woman and mother I was shocked at how gaunt and miserable both the male and female models looked,” she said. “I don’t think it made the clothes look any better to be on skeletons. In fact, it made them seem like costumes rather than something a “normal” person would wear. And it wouldn’t have taken away from the clothes if they expressed some emotion.”

While the fashion industry has made strides in recent years to ban models below a certain BMI and be more inclusive for women of all sizes, my stepmother’s experience definitely put progress into perspective. “Shame on the industry for continuing to promote super thin as a necessity for beauty and fashion. The teenage girls of our world are watching and their body image is often tied to fragile psyches,” she said. “Girls are suffering as a result. Bring back the models of my day, Christie Brinkley, Elle McPherson and Cheryl Tiegs.”

It’s a general rule that motherly advice must always be taken with a grain of salt — and sometimes an eye roll — but this time, she has a point.

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