IN Moscow, Evelina Khromtchenko, the editor in chief of the Russian edition of L’Officiel Magazine, is famous.
She sits in the front row at Moscow fashion shows. She automatically gets reservations at overbooked restaurants. She recently played herself — Lanvin blouse, Miu Miu pants, Alaïa heels and all— in a Russian TV series called “Born Ugly.” And she just dubbed the voice of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly character for the Russian-language version of “The Devil Wears Prada,” she said.
In Manhattan, she doesn’t always receive a similar reception.
“Once, I was invited to Zac Posen, but the seat wasn’t in the front row,” Ms. Khromtchenko said. “It was not a good experience.”
Well known in their own countries, editors of foreign fashion magazines (unless, of course, their first names happen to be Carine or Franca) sometimes find themselves seated in Siberia at New York Fashion Week, or even fighting for standing room.
Some foreign editors said their Fashion Week access depends on a designer’s retail presence in their countries, their magazine’s coverage of the brand, their past attendance at Fashion Week and, of course, their personal relationships with designers and publicists.
“The only person in New York who knows me is Dita Von Teese,” said Mayumi Nakamura, a fashion features editor at Vogue Nippon, referring to the burlesque performer. Ms. Nakamura was attending shows here for the first time.
Her newcomer status meant that, at shows like Alice Roi and Charlotte Ronson, she sat in the second rows. From other designers, she got mixed messages (Diane Von Furstenberg sent flowers to her room at the SoHo Grand hotel, but she was assigned an eighth-row seat at the show itself). And she wasn’t invited to some shows.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Ms. Nakamura, in a black sleeveless Phillip Lim sheath and bright green Pierre Hardy shoes, was looking forward to the Lim show later that evening. She had bought a Proenza Schouler dress on the chance that she would manage to wrangle a seat to that show, but she had not yet received an invitation.
Editors from less prominent publications have an even harder time.
“It’s tough: I only know the New York publicists a little bit,” said Weechee Cho, a contributing editor for the Singapore and Malaysia editions of Marie Claire, who was relegated to the bleachers at the Brian Reyes show. “It’s sad because it means New York is the least covered city.”
If Fashion Week here seems like a fortress surrounded by a moat, the Paris collections can be even harder to storm. Ms. Nakamura said that the most popular Paris designers, like Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, offer only one seat to Japanese Vogue — for the editor in chief.
“The rest of us sit in the hotel checking Style.com for Balenciaga to appear,” she said. “It’s a pity.”
Ms. Khromtchenko argued that editors from retail powerhouses like Russia and Japan, where label-conscious consumers have high purchasing power, are entitled to seats with a view. (Japanese consumers spend about $100 billion annually on apparel, while Russians spend about $3.1 billion, according to Euromonitor International, a market research firm.)
Designers like Derek Lam, Narciso Rodriguez and Diane Von Furstenberg, whose clothes sell in Moscow boutiques, seat Ms. Khromtchenko front and center, she said.
“Not England, not France, but Russia together with Japan is the financial power that sells fashion,” Ms. Khromtchenko said. “If the Japanese are very silent about this, the Russians are very obvious. Of course, we need respect.”
...
