If you noticed, there are no mentions of Madonna or Lady Gaga. Is Ms. Sherman saying both ladies are no longer celebrities? So, the stars standing at the very top of the list are Rihanna and Beyonce? Why is Paris Hilton a D-list star? That sounded really off.

How reliable and accurate are these figures? Will Marc Jacobs really pay someone like Kim Kardashian $50,000 just so she appears on his show? I find this to be ridiculous! Who is Kim Kardashian to command such a price?

I don't really have to use financial figures for you to get it. Just the amount of $50,000 to have one celebrity (a C-list at that!) sit at a show is not only preposterous but incredibly fantastical. To have five celebrities would mean $250,000 as additional show cost. If they want ten celebrities, then they have to shell out half a million. These cash-rich fashion brands must be dying to get rid of their extra cash!

Aside from the phone calls, how can this be substantiated?

Luckily, I don't have to bother Ms. Sherman to confirm her figures. Abe Gurko,  who worked in both the fashion and movie industries, reacted with the following:

Let me start by saying that part of my business is orchestrating front row talent for assorted companies and none of what they are reporting is true. What I think fashionista.com did was call a slew of garden variety talent agents and received generic quotes. One thing you learn about casting a front row is…never call agents. They love throwing out ridiculous nilly-willy high prices. And that does not even get you anywhere near guaranteeing the talent. Booking talent for front row or any other event or project is not as cut and dry as buying something online. There is no Celebrity Ebay. Sure, people think we have celebrities chilling on ice, that you crack them off one by one when you need to spice up an event, or dazzle the press. But it is a far more complicated process, one that takes years of cultivating relationships. There is much navigating the waters of publicists with agendas, managers with different agendas and the talent, who usually are the nicest people, but the handlers make you think otherwise. [ read more ]

So those figures are unreliable after all. Which brings me to the next question...

Is everything based on a price? Is there any possiblity for a celebrity to attend New York Fashion week for the sheer pleasure of it? I really think so. I guess, that's what Abe is saying. Not everything should be based on talent fees. Fashion designers and stylists and models and movie actors can all become friends right? So, would you still ask your friend to pay you because you're attending his show?

There is apparently one important issue we have to take note. A Blogger is really a researcher, a writer, an editor and a publisher rolled into one. It is our responsibility to our audience to exhibit a certain degree of professional skepticism and not take everything at face value.

With the financial crisis still hanging over us, spending a quarter of a million to sit celebrities in a fashion show sounds not only incredible but perhaps even hallucinatory?