“I Snuck Into Fashion Week!”

I had a ticket. I had a ticket, and a pseudonym. At this and all other New York City fashion week events, I was G— T—, a high-ranking executive at a nice Midwestern cosmetics firm for which I do some grunt work. I’m not sure what she does there, but she—meaning I—sure raked in the invitations. I’d even RSVPed, and now if I could just get up to the table of perfectly manicured hostesses checking people in for the Rosa Cha show, I felt certain they’d upgrade me from standing room to a seat along the runway.

Really, they could have crammed a lot more people in if this were Glamorama and not the Bryant Park tents. In New York, if you don’t rate front row seats in clear view of the press, you don’t rate at all.

I’d managed some pretty decent seats in earlier shows; at the Lloyd Klein show, I was briefly wedged behind super-socialite Jocelyne Wildenstein, the walking plastic-surgery cautionary tale who is openly referred to as “the cat woman.” I also had my nose in the hair of a lanky brunette who may or may not have had a bit part in Monster’s Ball.

“It’s ahwlreddy 9:20 and the schedule says nine,” a Brooklyn-bred newbie next to me whined to her boyfriend. I gave her a withering look. “These things never start less than a half-hour late,” I said, not exactly trying to be helpful. A huddle of art students spoke in luscious Brazilian Portuguese on the other side of me.

Rosa Cha swimwear does not quite cover the most beautiful butts in Rio, and was drawing a big crowd—whoops, there’s Ivana. Hold the phone, it’s Cuba Gooding. Hello, Beyoncé. Pick your seats, Toni Braxton and Venus Williams—but once the celebrities were all in, they were sure to usher in the designer’s countrymen, and me, of course.

Except moments later, clueless Brooklyn and her date inexplicably appeared on the other side of the ropes, gliding into the darkened entryway. I saw strobe lights. I heard the jungle beat. I’d been shut out of Rosa Cha.

I was supposed to be scoping out bathing suits for our campaign’s upcoming shoot in Miami, not craning to see past the two techies apparently tapping a direct stream on the lobby monitor. “Dude, did you see who’s in the front row? Pharrell Williams,” said one. “What show is this anyway?” Nerds. “Rosa Cha,” I replied, a little snottily. I wondered if that was rain I was hearing and if I shouldn’t just call it a night. The color on the screen was whacked and you’d need to wear three of those suits back at Lake Calhoun anyway.

But it was raining, and raining hard, and we were all stuck there under the vestibule until it eased up, even the A-listers when they came samba-ing back from carnival. I talked to a young woman whose boot-cut Miss Sixty jeans, peasant smock, and Ducati head wrap struck the perfect balance between somebody and anybody, who told me that her Yorkie, Nikky, had watched three shows from the comfort of her bowling-bag carrier. “So how does she like this scene?” I asked. An amputee stumped incongruently by.

Miss Sixty began to gush, then caught herself. “Oh, she loooves fashion… except for the noise, of course, and all these people, and…” she sniffed. She had a gold sand dollar around her neck, and dangly oversized monogram earrings.

I did not ask what the P was for, nor the V. I did not ask who Pharrell Williams was, though his posse was blocking the door. Rain or no rain, I had not gotten into Rosa Cha, and I was out of there. “Excuse me,” I said, trying vainly to nudge past a hip-hopper with a snake tattooed on his neck.

“Psst. That’s Pharrell Williams,” said someone at my elbow. I looked at him blankly. Outside on the steps, a herd of teen-aged boys with cameras jostled. “Pharrell, Pharrell!”

“He’s my cousin,” one of them said, and looked at me hard, to see how gullible I was, and how starstruck.

“Sure,” I shrugged, a Minnesota girl in the Big City. “Just folks.” And I crumpled up G— T—’s invitation and made a dash for the train. —Jennifer Gage