Graydon Carter on Richie, Lopez and co: "Who cares? They're just actresses"

winona ryder, christina ricci and nicole richie at DKNY/reuters

Yes that has to be the quote of the decade. Graydon Carter, editor of celeb Bible Vanity Fair, weighing up the pap frenzy which went down at the Diane von Furstenberg show yesterday. The PETA protestors who managed to infiltrate DKNY's runway had nothing, apparently, on the pre-show kerkuffle which occurred at not only DKNY, but also Diane von Furstenberg, which two shows' combined front row lineup boasted Tatum O’Neal, Eva Longoria Parker, Venus Williams, Rosario Dawson, Jennifer Lopez, Uma Thurman, Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci and Nicole Richie. Wow. That’s celeb overload even by New York Fashion Week standards.

Carter dropped the above quote when a photographer “practically fell in his lap” before the DVF show, according to WWD's just-filed “Bumps and bruises at DVF” story.

And Carter wasn’t the only highprofiler complaining apparently.

Regarding the pap schmozzle around her front row neighbour Nicole Richie over at DKNY, Christina Ricci told another media outlet:

"I think the media attention's fine until it becomes a weird frenzy."

Meanwhile, where on earth are the pictures from Victoria Beckham’s dress collection preview which I mentioned last night was due to kickstart Sunday’s proceedings?

Yes Beckham did show, but my apologies, in spite of the fact that The Daily is in fact in my Google Reader, I failed to recall this item from August 12, which mentioned that Beckham would be showing her collection in a series of private appointments.

Which is kind of hilarious really, given that every other designer uses celebrities to maximise their own media coverage during NYFW.

Yes, you do see celebs in Paris and Milan, and for precisely the same reason. But to nowhere near the degree that is witnessed in New York. With 250+ shows on, heck, I guess they need the point-of-difference.

In seasons past I’ve asked celebs why they front up to fashion shows – and particularly New York. Some of these iv's have been archived in this new blog [under the “celebrities” tag].

Their responses have varied.

Here’s what Victoria Beckham told me at the Marc Jacobs SS07 show in September 2006:

“I think that celebrities love fashion and I think that we're lucky enough to be able to get in the front row and come to these shows. I just like it, you know”.

In the same season, at Diesel, Heather Graham told me:

“Well I think because as a celebrity you have to go out to different events and people who are great designers, sometimes they give you things. Like you wear some of their stuff and so you develop sometimes relationships with people that you like their clothes, because you wear their stuff”.

But while the designers revel in the media attention that celebrities provide at shows, they don't seem to be quite so keen on the attention that celebrities muster for themselves when they launch their own fashion lines at the event.

In seasons past, some designers have criticised the growing trend for celebrity line launches at NYFW, claiming that they trivialise the event and deflect attention from the event's real stars: the designers.

Perhaps VB just wants to be taken like, you know, seriously as a designer.

Or Beckham's (ad campaign) client, Marc Jacobs, whispered in her ear that he'd reeeeeally appreciate her not cannibalising publicity from his Monday night show, to which she's expected to rock up.

Click here to see the Diane Von Furstenberg collection on wwd.com.
Click here to see the DKNY collection on wwd.com.