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 It's fall Fashion Week, and among the international gridlock of models, boldface socialites and style-setting celebrities, there lurks one decidedly less glamorous breed: the gatecrasher.
To hear Fashion Week's keepers of the gates tell it, attempts to sneak into the shows range from oddball to audacious, and are usually bungled. Fans of fashion who are far from the A-list will do almost anything to infiltrate the  coveted invitation list.
"People try to get in under the radar under the guise of all kinds of things: they come in back doors; they say they are agents; we've seen press credentials that have been manufactured to look dog-eared; they insist they work for the most obscure publications," Fern Mallis says.
Mallis would know. She is vice president of IMG, which organizes Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, the official, sponsored name of the approximately 80 shows at the Bryant Park tents this season.
"When they see the security guards at the door, everybody's suddenly my friend or a distant relative or tries to use my name to get in the door. On occasion, people have actually said to the security guards at the door that they were me. The guards knew full well that was not the case."
Mallis is hardly the only one who's had her name nabbed.
Take Chris Constable, a longtime publicist, at LaForce + Stevens, which handles many Fashion Week shows.
"I will be standing in the line to check people in, only to have them say, 'I spoke to Chris.' I used to say, 'I'm Chris, and I've never seen you before.' Now I pretend and say, 'Really? What did he say?'" After hearing the usual long, made-up story, Constable delivers the dreaded words: "You're not on the list."
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INTRODUCING PARIS AND SHAGGY
Constable's best crasher stories come from the shows for designer Heatherette, events he likens to the most heavily velvet-roped nightclubs.
One season, a notorious Paris Hilton look-alike got turned away by Constable at one show. Later, "The night of Heatherette, she pulls up in a chauffeured car, steps out to flashbulbs, looks up and sees me on the stairs, frowns and gets back into her car. She's not been back since."
That hasn't stopped an omnipresent party crasher known to insiders as Shaggy.
"He tries to crash anything and everything," says Constable. "He's so recognizable because of his, well, shaggy gray hair. Although he's never been rude to me, he has been rude to junior publicists. He oftentimes flashes a fake business card, and follows with the line, 'Do you know who I am?' I have even seen him in Miami for swim shows."
Another fashion publicist, Alexa Susser of Tracy Paul & Company, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, put on a show last year, and noticed him in the back. "I think he snuck in through the bushes," she says.
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FAR-OUT FAKES
Other would-be interlopers call and RSVP, claiming to be a manager or assistant for a celebrity or athlete. "They say they need to come early to make sure the area is clear for the VIP," Susser says. "Last year someone RSVP'd for a few major players from the Yankees. We called the real Yankee PR office to confirm; the team wasn't even in New York that weekend."
Playing dress-up isn't easy, even if you think you've found a name that's low on recognizability. Constable says he can recognize by sight at least 1,000 editors and reporters. Even beyond the top fashion magazines, publicists make a point of recognizing reporters for regional and international newspapers.
"I once had a woman tell me she was Hilary Alexander, one of the most major fashion writers in the UK," says Alexis Rodriguez, publicist for Diane von Furstenberg. "She fought me pretty hard, not realizing I knew who Hilary was. Turns out she just stalked shows and constantly heard Hilary's name and decided to give it a try. Nothing about her resembled Hilary at all," says Rodriguez, including her southern accent.
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THE INTERLOPERS
Worse than the fakes are the intruders who can't be reasoned with, since they resort to "pretending not to speak English and then just ignoring me," says publicist Robyn Berkley of People's Revolution, another firm that handles shows during Fashion Week. That's when security may be called to remove them.
With shows so sought-after, perhaps it was only a matter of time until crooks were attracted by the prospect of easy money: "Last season we had scalpers selling credentials for $100 a pop," says Susser of Tracy Paul. She added that security intervened, and that this season credentials could not be picked up until the day of the show.
And it's not just at the entrance to the tents that crashers invade. As celebrity attendance has increased, "The backstage has become a hotbed of activity as well," says Keri Levitt, who runs a firm by her own name.
A year ago, at the Child Magazine show, "An infamous stalk-a-razzi tried to hustle his way backstage before the show to get shots of Lindsay Lohan and her siblings," she says. "As children were lining up, he came dangerously close with his equipment, which just speaks to how aggressive and desperate crashers can be. Nothing is sacred. Every point of entry at the shows is now monitored to protect our designers' image."
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RECRUITING THE FRAUDS
Has any good ever come from dealing with a gatecrasher?
Roger Padilha, creative director of Mao Public Relations, a fashion public relations firm, once had a "fashion-obsessed" intern, who admitted to sneaking into shows and taught him the tricks of the trade.
"She would put on disguises with her mother, and they would both crash events -- parties that even I couldn't get into even after being in the business for 10 years," Padilha says. "She had tons of press badges that she would bring in her purse, and even a tiny laminate machine to do on-the-spot credentials."
"She'd tell us, 'If I were you, I would hole-punch the credentials, since a crasher isn't going to have a hole-puncher in their counterfeiting kit.' We loved having her intern for us because she gave us all the scoop -- so now for us it's really easy to spot them."
The intern didn't fare badly, either.
"The happy ending is that this girl is now working in public relations," says Padilha, "on the other side of the velvet rope."
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asap contributor Francine Parnes has been reporting on Fashion Week for the Associated Press for more than 15 years.
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