I arrived at fashion week already exhausted, but not in a way that felt dramatic or urgent. It was a familiar exhaustion, one that settles in slowly after doing the same thing for long enough. Ten years of fashion weeks have taught my body what my mind sometimes resists admitting. I no longer arrive with anticipation. I arrive with calculation.
DORIC ORDER
Before that, I spent a week at my parents’ apartment in Germany. I had plans. I was supposed to go skiing, hike, visit a few exhibitions in Munich. I did none of it. I barely left the apartment. My daily commute was from laptop to massage chair. One day, my step counter stopped at 150. I noticed the number and felt a brief flicker of embarrassment, followed by relief. It felt bad. It felt incredibly good. I knew what was coming.
That week was not restful in a wholesome, curated way. It was inert. Passive. Almost stubborn in its refusal to be productive. I did not reframe it as recovery or preparation. I simply stopped moving. The fact that it felt wrong said more than the stillness itself. Even after a decade in this industry, even with full awareness of the toll fashion weeks take, doing nothing triggered guilt. Not external guilt. Internal. The kind that whispers you are wasting time, falling behind, opting out. Stillness feels suspicious when you work in visibility.
At fashion week, presence becomes a form of relevance.
Then I took the train to Milan. A beautiful ride through the Dolomites, the kind of journey people romanticize. I booked the silent wagon so I could work on my schedule. I glanced out the window a few times, long enough to register the mountains, not long enough to absorb them. Landscapes passed while emails accumulated. Even beauty felt inconvenient.
Milan was manageable. It always is. The city is compact. The rhythm is firm but not overwhelming. Shows cluster. Distances make sense. You can still move through the day without feeling like the city itself is conspiring against you. Milan is work, but it is not warfare.
Paris is different. Paris is where the scale expands and the pressure thickens. Everything takes longer. Venues scatter across the city. The number of events multiplies. The same faces reappear endlessly, creating a strange social choreography. People you know. People you pretend to know. People you pretend not to know. Every interaction carries a calculation. Who to greet. Who to avoid. Who will remember you were there.
After ten years, the excitement fades, and repetition becomes impossible to ignore. Same venues. Same brands. Same silhouettes rearranged just enough to justify another season. There is very little that surprises me anymore. One show per season, if I am lucky, still cuts through the noise. This year, it was Willy Chavarria. His presentation felt raw, political, and alive, a rare moment of clarity within the cycle.
You cannot physically attend everything, so you measure. You prioritize.
That made the rest feel even flatter. Fashion week no longer feels like discovery. It feels like maintenance. Showing up becomes the job. Presence becomes proof of relevance. You cannot physically attend everything, so you measure. You prioritize. You decide where your absence will be least noticed. Every choice feels strategic, even when you pretend it is instinctive.
Paris demands endurance. Both physical strength and emotional stamina. The ability to remain receptive while depleted. To listen, react, smile, and move on. To form opinions quickly because reflection takes too long. To be visible without collapsing inward.
I slightly hate Paris. I do not know if it is the city or the exhaustion it amplifies. It might be both. Paris drains me in a way Milan never does. The scale, the density, the endless circulation. The sense that you are always late, always behind, always missing something else happening simultaneously across town.
Evenings are the real test. Cocktails. Dinners. Parties. I went to a few to prove to myself that I still could. That I still had it. I rarely enjoyed them. The truth is, I prefer being in bed. That feels like failure in this context, even though it is simply honesty.
The schedule decides what the body can hold.
By the final day, my body made the decision for me. It started raining. That particular Paris drizzle, light but relentless, paired with wind that cuts straight through layers. I went back to the hotel to dry off and realized I did not want to go back out. I watched five episodes of The Kardashians and felt genuinely good. No irony. No guilt. Just relief.
One episode stopped me. Kim was in Paris, going to court over the robbery that happened ten years ago. Watching it, something clicked. That robbery happened during my first fashion week. I remembered the night vividly. The Balmain party. Being pushed accidentally into a separate area by security. Turning around and seeing Kris Jenner and Olivier Rousteing standing next to me. Kim stayed in the hotel that night. That was the night everything happened.
Ten years. The realization landed quietly but heavily. A decade of fashion weeks compressed into one memory. That night felt electric then. Accidental proximity felt like magic. Everything felt possible. I did not think about exhaustion or repetition or scale. I thought about being there. Now, I think about survival.
Rest feels like a refusal.
On the day of my departure, I did what I always do. My flight was at night, so I scheduled a few more meetings. I do not know why. Habit, maybe. Reflex. The inability to leave space unused. By the time I got to the airport, I was finished. Not tired. Done. I comatosed on the flight back.
Waking up to see my husband waiting at the airport felt like relief in its purest form. Coming home to my apartment after eighteen days of travel felt grounding in a way no hotel ever could. The quiet was not empty. It was kind.
Ten years in, fashion weeks no longer seduce me. They demand from me. They require negotiation, restraint, self-awareness. The excitement has been replaced by discernment. The illusion of novelty has worn thin. What remains is the question of how much I am willing to give to a system that rewards endurance more than depth.
The week in Germany, the 150 steps, the ignored plans, they matter now in hindsight. They exposed the strain of both extremes. Absolute stillness feels illicit. Constant motion feels mandatory. There is very little room for balance.
After ten years, survival replaces anticipation.
Fashion weeks will not slow down. Paris will not shrink. The schedule will not soften because I am tired. But after ten years, I understand something I did not at the beginning. Exhaustion is not a badge. Visibility is not a virtue. And rest does not need to justify itself through future productivity.
Sometimes, the most honest response is staying in bed, watching reality television, and choosing not to go back out into the rain.
That, too, is presence.
All images shot on iPhone 17 Pro.
