Crashers, Power Outages, and Beyoncé? 8 Fashion Publicists Remember their Craziest Runway Show Stories

The crasher thing peaked around 2021 or 2022, right after the pandemic as TikTok was starting to take off, because one person went through the effort of putting all of the PR emails for New York Fashion Week together into a sheet and posted it. We were practically doxxed and got hundreds of spam emails coming through. The majority of those people don’t really show up to shows, but it’s work to sit there sifting through hundreds of random emails.

Beyoncé at Luar was also interesting because we were told about her attendance, but you never actually know, like with any big celebrity, until they get there. She was early, and it was all very organized. What we weren’t sure about was who she would come with—I didn’t know if it would be Blue Ivy, or her mother, or who exactly, so we saved seats for the whole family just in case. We also had to have a tight plan for what the entrance would look like and how she would exit afterwards, but it was all very smooth. What was actually funnier was that I started to get text messages from people, mostly editors, asking if it was true that she was going to be there, and telling me they were on their way.

Mumi Haiati, Founder, Reference Studios

I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, and have been running my own company for seven. When you asked me about this story, I started thinking about one of my designers, Luca Magliano, Luchino! Which is like “little Luca” in Italian. On top of his amazing designs and many headlines, especially in Italy where he is an important voice, he is also a really fun person, but can also be quite unpredictable. Because of that, up until the last show in June, it was always really interesting to make any plans or foresee what was going to happen right after the show.

Earlier this year in January, he was invited to do a show at Pitti Uomo, which was a big moment and really took the brand to the next level. We were all pretty nervous, but also very excited! But, again, because you never know with Luchino, we had to have a, let’s say a talk, about how important it was for him to be there after. You see, because he could get anxious sometimes, he had developed this funny habit to hide after the shows! So when you guys, the press, would come looking for him, we had to also go looking for him. Something like a tragic comedy—imagine my team running around backstage looking for him to find him in the most unexpected places. I would always have to be like, “Luca will be here in one minute!” and say he was with his family, or something else, you know…family is everything!