Amy Cooper

Wednesday May 9, 2007 04:08 PM

Sunday, May 24, 2009

How to handle party stranger danger

At this week's parties, Amy wonders if it's ever possible to become comfortable plunging into the social unknown.

A very well-known female celebrity once turned to me at some crowded charity function and said: 'I don't know how you do this every night.'
She confided that she dreaded parties. The stage held no fear; the screen was her comfort zone. But strangers and smalltalk filled her with nameless horror.
I wasn't sure if she had it easier than me. At least when your face is as familiar to people as their own backyards, they'll talk to you because they think they know you. But they're also wondering who the man on your arm is and where you bought your frock and whether that's a baby bump you're packing under its waistband. So maybe it's better to be an anonymous person in a room full of anonymous people.
In this job, I often have to attend parties alone. But I've been doing it long enough and Sydney is small enough for me always to find someone I recognise. And even if the guests are unknown I'm bound to be acquainted with the waiters, chef, tech staff or doorman. (Often they're the evening's best conversationalists anyway.)
It was harder when I started. Back then I was required to parachute solo into groups I'd never encountered and had little in common with. I knew little about fashion, but had to saunter up to cliques of designers and stylists and insert myself into conversations about The Pant and The Hemline. I floundered amid the foodies' bewildering canon of culinary knowledge and struggled to comprehend the language of the hardcore art crowd.
Models, I found, were the easiest; they rarely speak to anyone anyway and so it is possible to stand beside one in companionable silence for long periods of time, after which you will be considered a friend.
TV personalities at the bottom of the food chain are good for a chat, too. They're primed by their agents to verbalise their resume as often as possible in public, under pressure to tell you whose clothes they're wearing and to plug whatever they're working on. All you have to do is stand there and listen.
Being a journalist helps. It's an excuse for bowling into conversations, asking blunt questions and - when all else fails - talking on the phone. It's a job which simply doesn't allow you to be shy. But even today, the prospect of stepping into a room filled with hundreds of strange (often in every sense) people can still make my heart beat faster, and I understand why some people loathe it.
How do you soften a daunting entry into uncharted social territory?
My first piece of advice: find common ground with your fellow guests. Easy if the party has a focus - art, food, wine tasting, performance - which allows you to share opinions. A simple: 'wasn't that clever/delicious/abominable/unfathomable?' is enough to kick off an exchange, debate or even a fight.
If the party offers no such catalyst, use a prop. I met a man at Hugo's the other night who was carrying a book. Privately I thought this made him a tosser, but I'll admit it was a conversation starter. Myself, I'd opt for something less Melbourne. A hat, perhaps. Or you could pick up a complicated canape and ask someone what they think it is. Be resourceful.
Always talk to the catering staff. They know who else is worth talking to. They can even introduce you. And they know where the real champagne is.
And above all, consider my Mum's invaluable piece of party wisdom, imparted before my first school disco: "Don't worry about what people are thinking of you because they'll all be too busy worrying about what everyone thinks of them."
In Sydney, this has extra resonance. One of the great ironies of our peacock, show pony party scene is that no-one really sees each other. They dress to impress, then spend the evening admiring themselves and hoping those around them will do so too, which they won't because they also have eyes for no-one but themselves. And so the room is filled with hundreds of performers playing to an audience of just one.
I've observed this mass narcissism in action on every pool deck, night club dance floor and balcony in this town and I've come to quite enjoy it because it leaves you free to wear, do and say pretty much what you like. When a friend of mine once became so drunk in a bar he began to romance a potted plant, no-one around him noticed and so his reputation remained intact.
In its oddly endearing way, a self-absorbed crowd is the easiest one to penetrate. All you need to do is find the nearest mirror and chat to that.

by Amy Cooper at 01:06 AM
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Monday, May 4, 2009

Frocks and fiascos

I can report that behind the scenes at Fashion Week there was much to point and laugh at.

I can't help it. So much of the deadly-serious fussing and jostling surrounding this annual trade fair - because that's really all it is - seems plain ludicrous.
The only part I struggle to find funny is the behaviour of the crowd that Fash Week attracts.
You think frocks are pretty? Not always. Something about the rag trade just seems to turn people mean.
Rudeness reigns supreme. When one of my colleagues politely asked for a drink at one function at in the official Absolut bar after roaming the place for the best part of half an hour trying to find one, the waiter mimicked him, turned his back and flounced off. I lost count of the times I was shoved, elbowed and prodded by hard-faced women intent on being first to the show, the bathroom, the champagne - hell, even the sausages at the sizzle.
I felt a bit sorry for the models. They're not allowed to be rude. This year a clutch of them spent 10 hours in make-up naked except for little thongs and nipple stickers, being painted all over with black and white spots, stripes and harlequin patterns for the M.A.C. opening party. Thus adorned, they stood for hours on mirrored podiums holding a single pose while around them the rest of us knocked back food and fizz.
I remember locking eyes with one a couple of hours into the evening. Momentarily I saw the desolate gaze of a caged lab animal, before the professional blankness returned.
On Wednesday, a chilly evening, models were dangled from trees over water at the Willow event at the harbourside Carthona House. With no body fat and very little material for cover, they looked as if, one by one, they might topple from their perches. This might have provided welcome light relief to a botched event where guests were assailed by an invasion of no-name, no-use 'socialites' plonking their butts on other people's dinner table seats so relentlessly that even the designer herself - Kit Willow Podgornik - had to oust a usurper from her spot.
The sparring over seating real estate is a perennial feature of Fash Week and is amusing - up to a point. As one of my frock writing colleagues pointed out, the last thing you need when you've been working round the clock to meet deadlines and provide the coverage the organisers expect - and demand - is to have to do battle with glamour-addicted pests who descend like locusts upon the runway shows and hospitality, clogging the place up as they claw for their slice of attention.
I see it at so many parties generally; the people who actually must attend these events for work - such as journalists, caterers, photographers, models and entertainers - wearily trying to get the job done while wading through what I have come to call 'idiot soup.' This city needs a major cull of its fabulous and not-so-fabulous nobodies and to instigate a recognition of talent, wit, humour and humility.
And I'd love to see good manners back in fashion.

by Amy Cooper at 01:02 AM
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