Drake & Anna Wintour Had a Giggle Fit at Serena Williams's Fashion Show

Serena Williams wearing a fringed skirt during her HSN fashion show. Photo: Getty

I was hesitant to go to Serena Williams’s fashion show for HSN, aka the Home Shopping Network. A runway presentation… for clothes designed by a professional athlete, sold on TV? It just didn’t seem… New York Fashion Week-legit. I usually think of HSN as selling things like rotating curling irons, blenders, and old lady brooches.

Apparently, Anna Wintour didn’t agree.

The expertly bobbed tennis fan and editor in chief of Vogue, looking teeny-tiny in one of the event space’s director-style chairs, was getting chatty with Williams’s rumored/definitely boyfriend, Drake, in the front row. Beside Wintour was an empty seat, then mega models Gigi Hadid and Lily Aldridge. I leaned in to ask Wintour who the lucky person was sitting between her and Hadid. Smiling, she shook her head, “I don’t know!” Then Drake’s bodyguard escorted me away. It was real, guys!

Drake and Anna Wintour having the best time ever at Serena Williams’s show. Photo: Getty

Everyone else took their seats, and the lights went down. The space between AW and GH magically disappeared, though no one new was there. Fashion is magic. There was a strange lag time before the show actually started: The photographers at the end of the runway, right by where I was sitting, were growing restless. Someone’s phone rang through to voicemail, and some guy said aloud, “Isn’t this the same Serena who lost the other day?” #rude.

Finally, the show began. I kind of thought the models would be what fashion people refer to as “real girls,” i.e. women who maybe aren’t six-feet tall and size 2, and are thus more relatable and/or accessible for the HSN crowd. But no, they were regular model-y ladies, marching down the runway to several Drake tunes—who, by the way, didn’t bat an eye at the sounds of his own voice booming over the sound system.

I was also surprised at how trendy and wearable the clothing, itself, was. There was suede, fringe, and leather (which Williams thinks is “really fun”) to spare, cut in sporty, slim silhouettes. The palette was overwhelmingly what I’m going to call “neutral desert,” and there were bomber jackets, lots of leggings, festival friendly fedoras, tons of slinky draping, and a few tops revealing Kardashian-level cleavage.

Gigi Hadid and Lily Aldridge wore looks from the collection.

The more I thought about it, the more it actually made sense to show a line of shop-from-home clothes at a fashion show. Oftentimes, the thing that stops people from ordering items they haven’t seen in 3D is the question of quality. How will that jacket look when it actually gets to your house? What if the faux leather looks more like pebbled plastic than calfskin? But by showing the product in real life, it’s propelled forward from being something on a shopping network you’s normally flip past, to an outfit you might actually envision yourself wearing day-to-day.

I can totally see women wanting buying into Williams’s new collection—and even seeking it out to purchase on HSN. The clothes were casual and trendy, and the models looked cool. Plus, the designer is super famous, wealthy, and has the body of a goddess. Perhaps one or all of those qualities might rub off on the wearer?

A look from Serena Williams for HSN. Photo: Getty

After maybe 15 minutes, the show ended and Queen Serena, wearing black fringe (what else!) and an extremely low cut top, popped out to wave ‘goodbye and thanks’ to her minions. Wintour ran out, Drake disappeared (presumably to give his GF some congratulatory lovin’), and Andre Leon Talley hobbled over in his platform boots towards the elevator going downstairs. He declined an interview, but obliged when several smartphone wielding fans asked for selfies.

The Serena Williams for HSN Signature Statement Fashion Show may now be but a memory, destined to live on in the imaginations of those who were there to witness its finery in the flesh. I’m truly grateful to have been one of them.

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