6:35 p.m. With some difficulty due to tight pants, I sit on the floor in one corner of the room next to a pile of handbags and observe the scene from this vantage point. It looks largely the same.

6:36 p.m. A man holding an expensive camera swoops into and away from the models’ faces, clicking away. They pretend not to see him, which involves a lot of pretending since, at any given time, he is close enough to successfully complete a round of “Pass the Orange” with at least one of them.

6:37 p.m. I stand up with even more difficulty than I previously experienced.

6:38 p.m. I observe in my notes that I am “ready to tear my eyes out.” Donald Rumsfeld could not have planned a more physically and mentally demanding fashion event for terrorists.

6:39 p.m. I catch my first glimpse of the collection’s designer, Erin Fetherston, who looks prim and meticulous and, with her neat blonde ponytail secured with a black ribbon, so much like all of the models that when she stands in front of the platform to pose for pictures in front of herMad Men menagerie, I briefly think they have added another girl to the roster midway through the presentation. Her irises are a shade of pale blue I previously have only observed in the eyes of Rankin-Bass characters. She has a very particular bang-smoothing technique that is mesmerizing in its precision, which I watch her subconsciously demonstrate across multiple interviews.

6:40 p.m. When she finishes, her bangs look exactly the same as they did before but, y’know, great.

6:41 p.m. The models, who have now been holding their stress positions for over 41 minutes (as they were already in place by the time we were admitted) are seriously beginning to wobble now. Many of them appear to be inadvertently rubbing their arms as a way to pass the time.

6:42 p.m. There is only one woman–seated in the front row with her hands placed just so on a pile of two slim books–who never moves, ever.

6:43 p.m. I would say she was like a statue, except that statues eventually crumble and fall over.

6:44 p.m. She is like a mathematical constant.

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