NEW YORK, Feb 11, 2002/ FW/ --- Invitations to New York Fashion Week are hard to come by. Getting a seat at the front row is like finding water in the desert!

Reserved for big retail buyers, top editors and celebrities, front row seats in any fashion show are "guarded" and fashion show organizers spend a lot of time for the seating arrangment.

There is a pecking order and if you are a show organizer, you better get it right, or else, someone will get upset or anguished to say the least.

The PR people of John Bartlett did a great job in their seating arrangement! What they did not consider, or thought of, is that someone will actually "snag" someone's seat in the front row!

Hard to believe? But, unfortunately, it did happen!

Apparently, a top editor from a men's fashion magazine was supposed to get a front row seat. But another editor from another magazine snagged the seat by switching name cards.

So, the top editor from the men's fashion magazine ended up sitting at the second row.

Well, this is a menswear show! Hence, it is important that the men's magazine be "represented at the front row."

Needless to say, there was a little bit of mayhem! The person who is supposed to sit at the front row approached the PR and asked where the seat was.

The PR dutifully look at the seating arrangement and confirmed that the person's seat was the front row. But it was already taken by the person who "snagged" the seat!

Thankfully, a well-meaning top editor of another magazine decided that the second row seat is not so bad.

To help out the PR, the well-meaning top editor gave up the front row seat so that the person who lost a front row seat could sit there.

Now, that is what I call a diplomatic solution! And bravo for the top editor who gave up a front row seat!

P.S. None of the people involved in this tale is in the photos accompanying this article.

Fabien Baron

Kimora Lee Simmons

Kaiman Ruttenstein

Michael Roberts