Paris Fashion Week is a finely-tuned machine of controlled chaos, but on the morning of Julian’s show, the chaos felt different. It was the frantic, hollow energy of an event no one truly wanted to be at. His show had been relegated to a 9 a.m. slot on the third day—the industry’s equivalent of a public shaming. It was a slot reserved for upstarts with no backing or has-beens on their way out.
I didn’t watch from the front row. I watched from a monitor in a small, private office high above the Grand Palais, loaned to me by the Federation. Beside me sat Monsieur Dubois, the silver-haired, iron-willed President of the *Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode*, and Marc Ellison, the LVMH executive who had championed me. They were silent, their faces grim. They had seen my evidence. They
