The Top Three Hot Spots To Avoid During NYC's Fashion Week

September 10, 2009 at 9:28 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (0)

It's that time of the year again, when, in New York, the models come out the play and everyone shines off their fancy shoes for the biannual Fashion Week. Since this is the last season for the shows in the temporary tents at Bryant Park (which this season have a travel theme), expect there to be all kinds of hubbub in Midtown, but other bits of the city as well.

For the first time, another Fashion Week has risen up to challenge the dominance of the IMG Fashion/Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, which is the one held in Bryant Park. This new contender is MAC and Milk Fashion Week; MAC being a cosmetics company and Milk a collection of event spaces on the edge of the Meatpacking District. Thus, with all of the venues scattered about town, we thought we'd help those of you who'd rather go about your week without models, or with models if that's your thing.

Here we go; The Top Three NYC Places To Avoid During Fashion Week...

3. The Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar
It's not like you could even get a table, let alone admitted to one of these places. You see, The Waverly Inn restaurant and Monkey Bar lounge are owned by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who prides his restaurants on their exclusivity. Monkey Bar is newer and uptown, at East 54th Street, while The Waverly is downtown in Greenwich Village on Bank Street. Maybe you have a craving for The Waverly's famous $55 truffled mac 'n cheese (which could be inflated up to $80 by now; who knows?), but save it for some other week as black town cars with tinted windows will be clogging up Bank Street every evening this week.

2. The Standard Hotel
Hotelier Andre Balazs has created a monster, a too-sexy-for-its-shirt monster of a hotel and restaurant. The Standard was barely open for last fashion week, and thus was mildly ignored. This summer however, the Standard Grille is open and the game plan has changed. It is now the setting for runway show after-parties, meetings with fashion buyers, drinks before a show, and a myriad of other activities. This is where the men who love models will be sleeping, but not necessarily with models.

1. Bryant Park
This is ground zero for Fashion Week, and it's okay to say that because from today through next Thursday, the park will be a disaster area of high heels and paparazzi. The main entrance tent for the runway shows faces directly onto Sixth Avenue, and most of the time this area is so covered with gawking tourists, arriving fashionistas, and the occasional fur protestors, that it even makes driving down the block a hazard. Plus, the New York Public Library at the other end of the park is covered in scaffolding for a facelift, so even though it's fashion week, there's nothing pretty to look at in the area.

Our advice? Just stick to the basic tourist sites and restaurants that keep prices below $50 for a side dish, and you should be well out of the Fashion Week fracas.

Related Stories:
· Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week [Official Site]
· Flash Your Amex For New York Fashion Week [Jaunted]
· Fashion Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

[Baggage Image: IMG Fashion; Other photos: JetSetCD]

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