No, Cathy Horyn, Fashion Week Is Not Like A Walk Of Shame

by Julia Rubin | 4:18 pm, March 9th, 2011

We love Cathy Horyn. We really do. She’s tough and smart and tells it like it is. So it is with a heavy heart that we must respectfully disagree with her assertion that the path from the Place de la Concorde to the Paris Fashion Week tents is “an extremely long walk of shame.”

Cathy! A walk of shame is something very different from what you describe as a situation in which “hundreds of people wait along a carpeted path to see the fashion people arrive for a show in a tent near one of the fountains…with cameras and microphones, and you can’t believe what they ask.” A walk of shame involves last night’s miniskirt, smudged makeup and stilettos! Sometimes it involves oversized gym shorts and huge flip flops! It might involve a hangover. Maybe she was referencing the feelings evoked by a walk of shame — dread, embarrassment and a hint of satisfaction? Maybe?

We would pretty much be the opposite of embarrassed if we were attending Paris Fashion Week, but we guess we get where Cathy is coming from. She’s used to asking the questions, not getting asked them herself. She’s become a fashion celebrity in her own right. If we lowly bloggers were to run into her at a show, we would want to interview her just as much as any other star seated in the front row, if not more so. That has to be a bit jarring and/or annoying.

To which we say: keep doing you, Cath! We will continue to read your delicious fashion criticism forever and ever, whether or not you misuse the phrase “walk of shame.”

[NYT]