Apparently, something called Iceland Fashion Week was supposed to happen in Reykjanesbær last weekend. Apparently, a bunch of participating designers and their entourage got trés pissed off when they arrived upon the site and realised the ‘catwalk’ they were meant to display their designs upon wasn’t ‘up to standard,’ or ‘as previously agreed upon,’ or what have you.
Apparently, most of them pulled out of the show at the last minute, opting instead to throw their own ‘Rebel Fashion Show’ at NASA that same night.
Apparently, a shitstorm flew over Iceland last weekend. A fashion shitstorm. Lots has been written about this mess thus far, most of it on-line. Many people want to have their say. We read the press releases, the blogs, the on-line news reports. While at least one of the designers that dropped out seems to have done so merely because she was unhappy with her accommodations and the purported age of her whale watching vessel, many of the claims seem to have merit.
A fellow named Andrew Lockhart, apparently involved with organising the thing along with fashion pariah Kolbrún Aðalsteinsdóttir, called our office to speak his piece, and distance himself from the whole mess, as it were. We conducted an interview with the man, and he told us his side of the story. He gave some interesting quotes, and we may well use them at some point. When and if we cover the whole debacle.
Now. A running theme through all the blog entries seems to be: “Don’t let this happen again. Don’t let young designers from all over the world pay their way to Iceland to participate in an unorganised mess of a fashion week.”
So, young designers from all over the world, be forewarned: Make sure to check the credentials of whoever you’re paying money to participate in their events in the future. Just because an event has the word fashion in its title doesn’t mean it is fashionable. Or valid.
If you think this all sounds like it would make for an interesting story, well, that’s because it would. It’s way interesting, as all tragedies are.
As far as we can tell, something blew up in someone’s face, and someone has an awful lot of ‘splaining to do. But we’ll be darned if we participate in this whole mess, at least for the time being. We weren’t there (‘Iceland Fashion Week’ forgot to invite us to their event), and every single account of the thing we’ve received seems heavily biased. So for now, you’ll have to rely on Google for your Icelandic Fashion Week Scandal stories.
We’ll maybe report something when folks calm down.
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