By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — The fashion police at next month's Fashion Week could include an actual officer or two.
The NYPD sometimes beefs up security by planting plain clothes officers in the stylish crowd at the Lincoln Center event, a police source said.
The officers have their eyes on everyone except the models; they keep tabs on the audience in case a fashionista turns out to be a protester in disguise. Activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sometimes sneak in and storm the catwalk at shows for designers who use fur in their collections.
In 2008, PETA protesters jumped on the runway at a Donna Karan show with signs that read, "Donna: Dump Fur." Protesters have also been known to hurl tofu pies at Vogue editor Anna Wintour because the magazine runs ads for fur.
To guard against those kinds of disruptions, the NYPD posts two undercover officers in the crowd, one on either side of the catwalk. Each monitors the audience members sitting opposite them.
The undercover officers usually find out about the assignment at the last minute, so there's no time to dress to impress, a police source said. That means they often attend the runway shows — where tastemakers catch their first glimpse of cutting-edge clothing trends — in casual clothes.
"It's tough to blend in when you're sitting around with people wearing high-end fashion clothes and you're wearing jeans and a T-shirt," a police source said. "If we knew in advance we'd ask them to dress up."
Do the cops get caught up in the glitz and glamour of Fashion Week? Not quite.
"You're not really going to get cops to buy into the whole spectacle of it," a police source said. "They're watching the crowd. They're not watching the runway."
