The Internet tells me that Fashion Week has been happening in New York since 1943. I had never heard of it until two years ago. This is how unfashionable I was: I would go to New England coffee shops, order hot apple cider, look at the leaves, and read languid Victorian poetry. I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main. It had a certain charm. Then, one day, at a friend’s apartment, I was made to watch an episode of Gossip Girl featuring Fashion Week. At first, I inwardly resisted GG, believing it was a slut show that made thirteen-year-old girls think it was awesome to be slutty. I’m still aware of that – this show is not for thirteen-year-olds, because they can’t understand it – but it is filled with great music, great fashion, and sharp literary references that fill me with glee. The show’s setting is The Upper East Side, and its characters are rich high school and college kids who never have any parental supervision. They have their own maids, limousines, helicopters – practically their own penthouse apartments. They’ve been drinking at bars for years, even though
