Fashion’s Night Out: The Show – 10 Shocking Highlights From Last Night

The largest public fashion show of all time was held at Lincoln Center last night, with the goal of getting people amped to spend money come the 2nd annual Fashion’s Night Out this Friday. FNO: The Show, which was put on by Anna Wintour and who else but her Vogue minions, featured a runway lineup of the who’s who of modeling think Gisele, Coco, Karolina, Chanel, Anja and pretty much every other model you’ve ever heard of. If you missed the live webcast of FNO: The Show last night, fret not. We’ve put together a few tidbits below to give you all the insider info you may have missed. And don’t forget to click through the slide show above for the best images of the night.

1. Blake Lively Kept It Classy
Probably the most notable celeb appearance of the night was Blake Lively, who was cozily seated between the Vogue editor-in-chief and Roger Federer. But to our surprise (maybe it was Anna’s watchful eye that kept her in check), Lively had not one, but two boobs completely concealed beneath her flouncy Marchesa strapless dress. And with all the cleavage the actress has been exposing lately, her classy look was a welcome change. But don’t worry, Blake hasn’t gone all Blair on us she still kept the hemline nice and high.

2. It Wasn’t A Complete Disaster
We know Anna has her shit together (I mean, it takes quite a woman to juggle Fashion Week and the U.S. Open at the same time), but let’s be honest with the kinds of highlights The Show promised, things could have easily gone awry. The largest public fashion ever, combined with every big name model you can imagine strutting in over 150 looks in an outdoor space? Sounds like the perfect target for an Ali G invasion (or worse) if you ask me. But alas, everything went off without a hitch.

3. The Models Made Their Entrance By Mode Of Bus
Not that there’s anything wrong with the bus system, but we can’t imagine that Voguettes ever take the subway, let alone the bus, especially now that rumors of bedbugs spreading to the particular public transportation mode have made it onto New Yorkers’ radars. Nevertheless, models made their initial entrance onto the runway from an FNO-outfitted double-decker. We guess Vogue has come a long way since the car service days. Oh, recession.

4. Pharell Asked All The Fashionistas In The House To Stand Up, And They Did.
I mean, have you ever seen someone tell Anna Wintour what to do? ‘Nuff said.

5. J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons Is “Terrified” Of Showing On The Runway
At the panel discussion put on by Amex held prior to The Show’s kickoff, Hamish Bowles led a dialogue between Alexander Wang, Tory Burch and J.Crew’s Creative Director, Jenna Lyons, at which Lyons said that the first time J.Crew presented on the catwalk, “it was terrifying” and “intimidating.” Apparently that big fat bonus Lyons got last year isn’t stopping her from getting the jitters when it comes to Fashion Week.

6. New Yorkers Still Aren’t Over “Empire State of Mind“
As the models arrived on the previously mentioned double-decker bus, a slow drawl of “Empire State of Mind” sung by Alicia Keys blasted over the speakers. Admittedly it was our theme song too, but that was over a year ago. Can’t someone please come up with a new anthem for our city? Kanye? Anyone?

7. Vogue Still Doesn’t Realize That We’re In The Technology Age
No, we’re not talking about the fact that they’re still a print magazine. Last night, cameras were off limits to audience members, which begs the question with iPhones and BlackBerrys that take just as good of image quality these days, is this kind of security still necessary? We are in the technology age, people. I can twitpic faster than your professional photographers can download images from their Nikons.

8. It Actually Started On Time
For those of you who’ve ever attended a fashion show, you know this is an anomaly. The fact that The Show began at 7:30 on the dot is something of a fashion miracle. To boot, the show maybe lasted 15-20 minutes max. We can imagine that the models were instructed to walk at the pace that Vogue staffers run through the halls when Anna makes a demand.

9. Everything Nothing Was Affordable
Okay, it’s Vogue. So this doesn’t really surprise us, but at an event that’s sole purpose is to get the public to go out shopping, it seems a little strange that almost everything that went down the runway (save for the FNO shirts) was straight off the runways of high-end designers like Chanel, Balenciaga, Prada, etc. There were, however, a few splatterings of H&M, Gap and Payless merchandise in the mix. On a positive note, we’re sure the fashion loving ticket-holders who couldn’t afford all the looks at least enjoyed seeing them on the backs of the likes of Gisele.

10. Ok, we’re cheating. Here’s one thing that didn’t surprise us… as the show came to a surprisingly quick close, I noticed some commotion gathering near the center fountain. When I went over to check it out, I got there just in time to see the back of Anna’s bob sneaking away through the crowd…until next year…