Why I Left Paris Fashion Week

What to wear for grief on a plane.

My last morning in Paris, smoking a skinny lil cig cause I’m gross.

I had planned to be in Paris for longer but instead I found myself at Charles de Gaulle airport wondering if anyone would mind if I lay on the floor in the fetal position.

Going to Paris for fashion week (as a real working fashion lady) had been my dream for a very long time. And probably for just as long, I had been anticipating the death of my father.

This anticipation was not because he was sick with any one thing. He was fascinated by his growing list of comorbidities and loved detailing them whenever he had a captive audience. A raconteur of maladies; the delivery was always solemn but I was sure I saw a twinkle in his eye as he spoke of side-effects and hospital stays. Never any mention of the elephant in the room: he had been a heavy drinker and chain smoker since his teens. That this had contributed to any of his health issues was never discussed.

My father was a louche; a complicated man who had a tenuous relationship with truth (*think Big Fish). The life of a party I could not attend. But when I stepped out of a restaurant in the 11th arrondissement to learn that he had passed away, the grief was as pure as I worried it might not be.

I pictured this moment and wondered if my frustration at his style of fatherhood (…personhood) was so great that I wouldn’t have access to sadness. That I would be too hardened to feel the truth of the moment: that he was my father, and while I had not always liked him, I had indeed loved him.

In picturing this moment, I had not imagined I would be in Paris…for fashion week…for the very first time. What’s that saying about God laughing when we try to make plans?

I dropped to the curb at the news and my colleagues inside the restaurant, who had been watching me through the window, knew I would not be needing that second espresso martini ( made with tequila IYKYK). Under normal circumstances it would be an absolute nightmare to receive news like this while in another continent on a work trip. But these humans absolutely enveloped me in love, and warmth, and sound and generous logistics to get me home as comfortably and quickly as possible.

I would leave the next day. But that night my exhausted colleagues rallied, bundled themselves up, poured red wine in a Nalgene and took me to the Eiffel tower so I didn’t have to leave without seeing it all lit up. It, and their kindness, was absolutely stunning.

That night I cried in in bed, in our beautiful rented Parisian apartment. Grieving my father and, in small part, the loss of the trip I’d imagined. I had such a wonderful time, and saw beautiful fashion. And I will tell you about that because I really want to. But later.

My father had called me “the princess” so it is honestly so fitting that this should happen amid so much anticipated glamour.

While pregnant with my daughter, my anger at him began to recede and now it’s gone completely. I see now that he did his best with what he had. A feral wolf born in the woods and then asked to be a man and a parent. Nobody showed him how. But I believe, in his way, he showed me.

The thinking behind my outfit for the plane (the top picture, plus some Acne snakeskin loafers) was: comfort, things I don’t have room for in my suitcase, hiding my red eyes and face. A beautiful boy on the in-flight crew lit up when he saw me approach in my tinted aviators. Once we were in the air, he made me a strong-ass caesar and told me he loved my “70s Paul Newman-style.”

“You were in Paris for fashion week. I can tell” he said.

I told him I was.

And I will be again. But today, I have to go home.