I’m getting ready for my second New York Fashion Week in February! I reported on Fashion Week in September for the October 13 issue of The Weekly Standard, online here.

An excerpt:

“Fashion Week is as important to those who work in fashion as getting dressed in the morning is to the rest of the population,” stylist and fashion expert Kate Schelter told me as we waited for the Peter Som show. “This is where we tap into all of the very exclusive information that’s only available and accessible to those who work in fashion.”

That “exclusive information”–a glimpse of trends nearly a year in advance–is the Holy Grail for the fashion-obsessed. It’s surprisingly easy for journalists to get inside the roped-off, heavily guarded tents, and I arrived with time to spare before my first scheduled show, Hervé Léger, one of designer Max Azria’s three shows during the week. With my official Fashion Week press badge I breezed past security, past the dozens of paparazzi and tourists hoping to spot a Desperate Housewife or Project Runway star, and past the requisite protesters: PETA in red-stained faux furs and buxom women calling for “curves on the catwalk.”

Of course, upon entering, I quickly realized that insiders don’t actually wear the badge–even a Mercedes-Benz lanyard clashes with $700 Christian Louboutin platform heels–and I tucked my badge in my bag…