Fashion

I finally got around to getting tickets to some of the Paris fashion shows. They are highly sought after, particularly for the biggest designers.

The paper sends critics to see the shows and they get invited to almost everything. They can't go to them all, though, so I got invitations to some of the shows they weren't going to see.

Because of the prestige of the paper, some of the tickets were for front row seats. That made Anna nervous at the Sonia Rykiel show, the first we went to.

This is a picture of her sitting in the front row before we switched seats. She was trying to look busy and officious because Sonia Rykiel's public relations people kept hovering around her, knowing who the seat was supposed to be for and wondering, I imagine, who Anna was.

She relaxed once she moved to the second row.

The few pictures I took of the show didn't come out. I picked this one off the Internet.

This is Sonia Rykiel and her daughter, walking the catwalk to the specators applause after the show.

It was really great fun, watching all of the fashionistas in the crowd and the surreal models stepping toward the bank of photographers at the end of the runway.

The show was in a temporary building set up in the Jardin des Tuileries. We walked from there to a hotel near Place Vendome for our second show, a Japanese designer named Junko Shimada.

The Shimada show wasn't as impressive, but it was in a beautiful 19th century room and the characters in the audience were still fascinating.

There was a big emphasis on shoes.

The models pause at the end of the runway for the photographers.

More shoes.

On Saturday, we went to see Kenzo in the Louvre. It was a much bigger show than the others and the paper turned in the critics' front row seats and got us more normal seats instead. Still, it was fun.

After the shows, the models come out and are mobbed by magazine and blog photographers. They pose and the photographers snap away. It was fascinating watching these girls drop into their poses, looking into each camera in turn - including mine.

Anna took this one of me on the Kenzo runway after the show. The whole experience made me more interested in fashion than I've ever been before. Still, I don't think I'll buy new clothes.