Seat wars #1: Checked out by Anna Wintour

I am standing outside the Narciso Rodriguez show. One of the bigger, buzzier names, Rodriguez is not on the official schedule but off it - and the front entrance is like Fort Knox.

A crowd of around 100 is standing in a queue waiting to get in. They are now letting some through. Curiously, some of these people seem to have tickets, while others do not. And quite a few of the latter are being let through because they are with the "right" person.

It's like a nightclub. Let's hope some of the hangers-on have jobs to do here because I and several others who don't have tickets, do, and we would like to be allowed to get on with that reportage. I'll get to why I don't have a ticket a little later. It is in part due to the size of this event and the shambolic manner in which it seems to operate.

"Erin you're OK, and you, you, and you are with Erin, you're OK too, come through" says one PR flack who is wearing de rigueur New York PR black, accessorised with mandatory Janet Jackson-style headset.

"You're all OK too" she says to another posse.

It seems the PR is fine with plenty of hangers on who don't have tickets, but she challenges one woman who does in fact have one. It should be pointed out that anyone who has a ticket but no assigned seating allocation must wait until the end, when they let in the unseated dregs.

"Excuse me, do you have your seating assignment?" the flack says to the woman.

"Cathy Horyn from The New York Times" the woman responds in a deadpan voice.

Another PR is kind enough to eventually let me in, once everyone else has gone through.

There must be 500 people inside here - a brick warehouse space with bare concrete floor. I make my way, as per usual when I don't have a seat, to the beginning of the runway where the models stand and pose for shots.

Apart from the minor inconvenience of having to stand, it's actually the best "seat" in the house. This fact appears to dawn on the Prada-loving devil herself, US Vogue imperatrix Anna Wintour, who is about a metre and a half in front of me, in what we both must assume is the best seat in the house.

Wintour checks me out. She seems to be thinking, "You interloper".

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