By: Pierre Jacques
Love fashion?
Too bad – you’re still not getting in.
Probably.
According to the New York Post, “It’s hard for the average person to score an invite to Fashion Week — unless you’ve perfected the art of gatecrashing.”
French comedian Marie Benoliel reportedly crashed the Chanel SS20 Show runway on Tuesday at the Grand Palais in Paris. Her goal may have been to demonstrate that anyone could do it. And in that, she succeeded.
“The 28-year-old posted proof of her shameless stunt on Instagram and YouTube and even admitted to French blog L’importante.fr that she also intruded the Etam show last week,” the Post reported. “My infiltration at Etam went so well, it was so easy that some thought it was rigged and that I had permission to do it,” she said, according to The Independent. “Are you kidding me? So I wanted to try the impossible with the most prestigious show on Earth, Chanel.”
Benoliel reportedly threw the event into a tizzy when she walked alongside the models on the catwalk. She was, however, “guided” off by renowned Gigi Hadid.
Booth Moore, an editor at Women’s Wear Daily, captured the outrage for all the world to see, then – what else – wrote about it on Twitter: “Someone stormed the runway finale and joined the models @CHANEL watch! #pfw”
“New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman, who was also in attendance, said it was the “best @chanel finale video ever: Spot the catwalk- crasher! And spot the security guys running after her!” Newsweek magazine reported.
Thank goodness the fashion angle was covered, as well, with CBS News pointing out that “Benoliel attended the fashion show wearing a houndstooth jacket and skirt — an outfit that fit right in with Chanel’s plaid heavy collection — and some might have missed her jumping out of the audience and slipping in between two models on the catwalk.”
BBC News reported that “it appeared Benoliel planned the prank as part of a publicity stunt. “We are not going to make a drama out of it,” a Chanel spokeswoman told the publication,” according to CBS. “Although Benoliel was trying to get attention for the stunt, Hadid started receiving praise online and began trending on Twitter, according to BBC.”
Apparently not content with her 15 minutes of fame, Benoliel — also known as Marie S’Infiltre – set aside some took time to speak out. “Say, I heard ‘Yeah, Marie, your infiltration at ETAM was true?’ or ‘Pfff, too easy’ or ‘Do you buddy with Aya? So, that’s too easy huh … So today I wanted to aim for the impossible: the CHANEL show!” she wrote in French in a post. “Tribute to Karl Lagerfeld Oulalalala it’s done! Gigi darling, are you recovering from our fight in the backstage? You tore my hair, and I gave you a knockout. We’re like that with Gigi you cannot understand … There we sip a Moscow Mule talking about our love stories. That it’s good to break in by inventing many mythos at fifteen checkpoints, then infiltrate without annoy anyone and roll ball on the most prestigious catwalk in the world! Where everyone makes a funeral head and takes himself very, very seriously.”
