Don't Do This at NYFW

New York Fashion Week comes around twice a year like a big black asymmetrical comet covered in zippers, cocaine, and the body parts of gay men. We love to hate it, and we hate ourselves for loving it so much. We’ve been covering the fashion shows and parties of NYFW for some time now, and we’ve picked up a few tips to help you navigate through all of the posturing, grandstanding, and douche-bagging to get to the actual good stuff—the art of clothes. Here is our list of things we feel you shouldn’t do when you’re spending a week looking at human coat hangers and doing bumps with D-list celebutantes.

Don’t Smile

Smiling is stupid because it could allude to the fact that you might actually be having fun. Fashion isn’t fun—it's hell. Do you see us smiling? No. We’re all just sucking in our guts and holding in our farts.

Don’t Push

This isn’t China, pal. People don’t take kindly to getting shoved in lines at Fashion Week parties and shows. If you put your hands on that guy in front of you in the red leather dress, you’ll have a studded pair of size-11 pumps lodged right up your anus.

Don’t Wear Anything That Can Seriously Hinder You from Having a Good Time

Everybody wants to wear some crazy shit at NYFW. But before you go peacocking in some neoprene straitjacket, remember that you'll eventually have to take it off, and nothing kills the moment more than halting the love train to carefully disrobe an avant-garde designer piece.

Don’t Wear Matching Outfits with Anybody

You thought it would be cute to match with your bestie, but she ditched you for a guy in leather overalls who’s so mad at himself because he didn’t get the twofer. Now you’re just standing there alone, all yin and no yang, messing with Mother Earth’s equilibrium.

Don’t Dress for Another Season

We know you’re dying to wear those pumps you bought in October at a red-tag sale, but it's fucking miserable out here. People are dying to see you fall in piss-and-dirt slush because you decided to wear inappropriate shoes. During fashion week, you're your star player—why set yourself up for failure?

Don’t Match in General

Generally, we feel like the term “ghetto matching” is kind of offensive. But sometimes you’ve got to call it like you see it. Wearing an all-over print hoodie and sweats that perfectly match your cement Jordans is a major misstep—you look like a giant fucking milkshake, fam. People are going to start calling you Mister Softee. Do you want that? Start giving no fucks, and fresh fashion will follow.

Don’t Bring the Whole Team

In the rare case that the guy you know who claims he’s “in the industry” turns out not to be full of shit and can get you into an event, the last thing you need holding you back from a glorious night of nomming on the neck of a waify model is the dead weight of your lame-ass homies. Leave the losers at the door, because they’d do the same thing to you.

Don’t Go Bareback

The fashion industry attracts some of the biggest degenerates on the planet, and fashion week is just an industry-wide excuse to have a weeklong drug- and booze- and bodily fluid–drenched bacchanal. Have your fun, but please stay strapped. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in the free clinic. Remember, what happens during NYFW stays at NYFW, unless it’s genital herpes—that shit is permanent.

Don’t Wear Fake Shit

I know the level of “fuck it” in you is so immeasurable that your style cannot be defined by boundaries, let alone a name brand. And in a world of aggregate blogging, stolen content, and zero accountability, why should you pay retail prices for designer shit when there’s fake Alexander Wang on eBay? The answer is that people design this shit for a living. Most fashion designers are a few steps away from being bankrupt. If you're coming to a show, show a little respect and either support some respectable high-end brands or just wear some nondescript American Apparel shit. BTW, “raging against the machine” isn’t a euphemism for internet homebodies who get off on the irony of logo re-appropriation. You look tacky, even by our standards.

Don't Be a Fashion Blogger 

On the fashion pecking order, no one is more base than fashion bloggers. The one thing you can say about the designers, stylists, and photographers is that they actually make stuff, and the industry types who own stores or put on the events provide a service… But what do the bloggers do? Publish duck-faced seflies and pontificate on how wearing something that some talented person created makes them special by association. Yeah, it's a bad look. And beyond all of that, the kicker with fashion blogging is that it will never get you laid. EVER. Stick to traditional sex-getting gigs like slangin' dope or being in a band—those ladies and gents get better seats at fashion shows than bloggers, anyway.

Don’t Point

Do you really want to be that guy? You know the one who keeps nudging you throughout a movie to make sure you’re not missing the “best part”? Thank you, air-traffic-control dude, but I can manage to fixate my eyeholes on the right looks.

Don’t Be on Time for Anything

In reality, you’re a day late, about two feet short, and in financial ruin. But your blasé entrance could be the ace in the hole you so desperately need if you’re here to smooch with a stylish person and sip the free drinks.

Don’t Do a Little Coke

Drug use is not a healthy life choice. So even though that white girl is pretty pervasive in fashion, we wouldn’t recommend trying a tiny bit of it. If you’re going to toot your horn, you ought to do it up BIG, Scarface style. Push it to the limit. Just don’t do the obvious shit like take three-person trips to the bathroom or rub your nose every five seconds like Pookie in New Jack City.

Editor's note: This article was originally published during last season's New York Fashion Week. Unfortunately, aside from the displaced fashion bloggers that are now barred from most of the events, not much has changed in the fashion realm, and this advice still holds true. Here's to hoping that we can collectively turn the tide on this infinite cycle of circle jerking.