K-Fed Celebrates the Return of Sean John -- The Cut: New York Magazine's Fashion Blog

A groomed Kevin Federline with
Wilmer Valderrama at Sean John.Photos: Getty Images

It all happened so quickly: an orgy of flashbulbs, a whirl of a revolving door, and suddenly standing six feet from us in the Cipriani foyer was none other than the man, the myth, the Federline. Yes, a man who once had a penchant for wearing man-pris and capes had descended on rapper Sean Combs’s Sean John fashion show, and his hotly rumored yet still somehow unlikely presence had the room buzzing.

Our thought process was as follows:
1. Dear God, we have to get closer to K-Fed.
2. Dear God, did we really just think that about K-Fed?
3. Dear GOD, did we really just ACT on thinking that and fight through a crowd to stand next to K-Fed?
4. DEAR GOD, does this mean we’re for sure on Team K-Fed?

He stood shorter than we'd imagined, and in his sedate gray suit and a pink shirt had shed the skeeze and instead looked quite tailored and hygienic. And downright placid! Standing a mere two feet from the most famous guy ever to wear a custom-made “Pimps” tracksuit at his own wedding, we immediately harbored dreams of asking him deep, thoughtful questions — Why do you have that ridiculous faux-hawk hairdo? What does “Popozao” mean? — but his security guard quickly dashed those hopes. “No interviews,” he told a disappointed girl from Us Weekly, while Federline kept his mouth clamped shut and stared slightly above everyone’s head in a very deliberate attempt to avoid eye contact. “None at all?” we heard ourselves sputter. “No interviews,” he repeated firmly. Understandably, we imagine Kevin didn’t want to spend half an hour fielding questions about ex-wife Britney Spears’s diminished mental state, but he should consider that some of us just want to know if he threw a party for his One Tree Hill debut, or whether Chad Michael Murray makes him queasy, too.

Inside the actual venue, it turned surreal. Just down the row from Federline sat designer Roberto Cavalli, who probably couldn’t identify a K-Fed if somebody drew him a diagram and certainly didn’t figure photographers would ever be more interested in a dude who owns a “Rock Out With Your Cock Out” hat than an actual fashion legend. Vogue’s A.L.T. and A-Dubs had the best view of all, positioned directly across the runway from Kevin. Long have we wished we could lip-read at Fashion Week, but here, we yearned to read minds. We imagine Anna was musing, “I could teach this man a thing or two about hair,” while K-Fed probably took one look at the Duchess of Bobshire and delivered the following (very moving) internal monologue: “YEEEEAH, drink it in, Bangs — you like the Subway? Want to take a trip on the Federline?” But for all we know, he was ruminating on a passage from The Brothers Karamazov he’d just read in his hotel room.

We wish we could report something juicy, but alas, Federline was well behaved, did not appear to have a hip flask, and never once pointed finger-guns at anyone. Although we did catch one almost-breach of etiquette: Overly eager to flee the scene presumably to get across town for the newly punctual Marc Jacobs show — Federline gave a farewell handshake to seatmate Wilmer Valderrama and signaled to his bodyguard before guest model and show-closer Tyrese Gibson Tyson Beckford had even exited the velvet runway. Realizing his mistake, Federline stuck around for Combs’s and Gibson’s joint bow, then dashed out of there faster even than Anna.

Also spotted, almost a monumental afterthought in the wake of The Federline: Rappers Q-Tip and Fabolous; singer Cassie; Ellen Pompeo, her husband Chris Ivery, and Helena Christensen together again; and P. Diddy’s mother, Janice Combs, whose shirt and tight pants were shiny, and whose sunglass lenses were the size of dinner plates. Meanwhile, Harvey Weinstein told anyone who’d listen that he is attending this show as a friend because he loves Sean “P. Diddy” Combs (which is what the program called him, in case anyone out there wasn’t sure how to address his valentine). “Me and my kids wear the clothes … well, my kids more than me,” we heard Weinstein say. “I’m not sure I’m the best model for it. I might make sales go down.” Then he went hunting for a Diet Coke. Who knew we had so much in common with him? That’s almost as surprising as our surge to get closer to K-Fed. Although a day after Tommy Hilfiger literally brought us to our knees, nothing should shock us anymore. —The Fug Girls

Browse a slideshow of the Sean John Collection.
Watch video of the Sean John show.
Browse backstage and front row shots from the Sean John show.