By JEFFREY SLONIM, NY POST
Fashionatas cat fight over the front-row seats, but the best views are backstage.
From naked supermodels to hot Porta-potty action - Oops! Gisele forgot to lock the door - nothing is hidden from the camera crews and reporters who do everything in their power not to look, let alone gawk.
As the girls are primped and prepared for the runways, they get rushed relentlessly by media crews.
The models will do anything to avoid promoting the fashion house that is laying out five figures for their strangely valuable time.
So they employ various techniques and devices to seem occupied - from itsy bitsy cell phones (Carmen Kass) to high-tech e-mailing devices that require their concentration (Karolina Kurkova) to ye olde press-avoidance system, endless lame conversations (Maggie Rizer and Amy Lemons).
Sometimes there are no models at all - and that's a real problem.
Designer Charles Nolan, backstage at Thursday's Anne Klein show, was beside himself a half-hour after his start time. His models were still stuck at Bill Blass. "I feel like I'm about to throw up," he moaned.
When the mannequins arrived - with three hours of hair and makeup to finish in less than 10 minutes - the stressed-out beauty team did everything but walk out on the runway with them.
And sometimes it's the clothes that cause problems.
At the Carolina Herrera show, the model just ahead of Frankie Rayder had already made her entrance, and Frankie was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, she scurried up to the curtain, screaming, "My zipper is stuck!" Her yelling "Fire" would have been a more welcome turn of events.
Panic registered even on the usually calm Herrera's aristocratic face as two grown men yanked hopelessly at the back of Rayder's dress. The zipper finally gave - after the longest 80 seconds ever.
For those lucky enough to obtain backstage access, ogling the gals is the biggest no-no - even though they strip without batting a glued-on eyelash.
At the Kors show, Gisele Bundchen actually dragged me with her to the loo to tell me she'd like to have a firmer tush, if it didn't take so much time in the gym.
Unfortunately, she didn't quite pull the handle back far enough to turn on the "occupied" light - and Caroline Murphy walked right in on her.
Not that supermodels are bashful. One minute, one of the top Latin American models was standing next to me in a floor-length dress, and the next, they'd whipped the gown off right over her head.
I tried not to look - but then I'm human and she's not. In that momentary glance of her standing au natural in her stilettos and little else, this golden-brown goddess appeared to be worth every penny she gets.
Forget the runway, I would have paid her $10,000 to walk on me.