After rummaging through a fashion show gift bag, I came across a flyer for Electric Circus, “the official after-party of L.A. Fashion Week.” hosted by Chic Little Devil.
Intrigued, I decided to RSVP without dropping the name of my media outlet. I received a prompt confirmation for the Friday night event, and thought, “Wow, these guys are pretty organized.”
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Upon arriving at the Cooper Building in Downtown L.A.’s Fashion District, my friend and I found a line snaking along the sidewalk at 9 p.m., a mere hour after the event had started. We waited. And then waited some more. And when it became clear the line wasn’t going to move, and an event official started cruising up and down the line looking for press, I caved and took our only opportunity to make it to the 11th floor penthouse. Or so I thought.
Event planners moved us to the front of the V.I.P. line, where people with “All Access” badges told us they had been waiting for more than an hour. Oh, and did we mention that the air conditioning in the Cooper Building’s lobby isn’t exactly well-equipped to handle hundreds of people waiting to board one of four elevators? Standing alongside the high-heeled, suited-up crowd, I felt like I was in the disaster relief center of a very fashionable town.
And in countless ways, the event was a disaster. The elevator keeper, a feisty woman in black-rimmed glasses, yelled at guests who waited to board empty elevators—“I decide who goes up!”—and berated the security guard, cursing at him in front of the crowd and telling him to put more “bass” in his voice. She certainly had enough bass in hers to scare him, us and just about everyone else in the lobby. Finally, she told us to back all the way up, forcing V.I.P.’s, press, and sponsors alike to exit the lobby because the Fire Marshal had threatened to shut the party down.
Outside, the line grew longer with the mass exodus. We had had it. We ditched the Electric Circus, tired of its pushy ringleader and disorganized frenzy, and decided to head to a bar, where I’m pretty sure we ended up having a better time alongside the official “out” crowd than we would have smashed up against alleged “somebodies.”
-Rosalba Curiel
Photo: The fire marshal gets pissy at Electric Circus. By Rosalba Curiel.
