Vermont Senator's Daughter Caught in Fashion Week Prank

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Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin's daughter, Becca Shumlin, has reportedly been caught up in an NYC Fashion Week prank. She and a schoolmate, Remy Renzullo, found a way to have their names added to the guest list at a series of events, according to the website Gawker.

It's a little unclear how they were able to pull off the prank. Initially, it was reported that the pair somehow hacked into a PR firm's database and got their names added to the guest lists, according to Gawker.

But an employee of fashion PR firm BPCM claims the pair simply had an intern help get them on the list.

How'd they get caught?

Renzullo also emailed BPCM with a request that he and Becca Shumlin be allowed access to another event.

The email is hilarious, and, like the author of the Gawker article, you have to admire their smarts and moxie.

According to the article, this isn't the first time the pair has crashed Fashion Week. They were photographed by Getty Images at last fall's event, and the website The Sartorialist snapped this photo of them on Sixth Avenue.

In Renzullo's alleged email attempt to get legit access to an event, he pitched himself as the current "stylist" of "future first lady of Vermont" Deb Shumlin.

Read the letter, after the jump.

Ya gotta hand it to this pair; this is some Class A bullshittin':

This is Remy Renzullo, requesting an invitation for Alexandre Herchcovitch's Fall/Winter 2010 show. I work as a freelance stylist, currently working with the future first lady, Deborah Shumlin, of Vermont for the campaign trail and hopefully elected office. More information can be found here: http://www.shumlinforgovernor.com. In addition I have been signed on to contribute to a new fashion magazine, FUTURE. I would love to have seats or standing if available for myself and Rebecca Shumlin, the magazine's editor-in-chief and daughter of the future governor and, myself. Please let me know if this will be possible.

Thanks so much for your time,

Remy Renzullo

Well, her dad brought Becca up right — she got in a link to his campaign website. Of course, as some of us in Vermont know, the Shumlins are temporarily separated.

BPCM had no idea who Renzullo was, so they looked him up and noticed he and Becca Shumlin were on almost all of the firm's guest lists. Hunh?

That's when it all unraveled. Damn, so close!

The best part of this story is that we're not dealing with one of those tales wherein a prep school-attending child of a politician gets arrested for drinking and driving, or doing drugs. This pair's attempts to get into Fashion Week were pretty clever.

A modern twist on Ferris Bueller's Day Off, if you will.

Becca Shumlin's Twitter account and blog have been shut down, but you can still find some of her work cached if you conduct a Google search. She writes about fashion — a lot — on her blog, and models Renzullo's designs.

Comments

[dale tillotson]

Her next big assignment will be to crash the Governors ball if her father is not elected.

[Michael Colby]

Shumlin's Education Plan: $44,000 per student. Well, if you're his child. Yep, that's what he pays to send his daughter to a private high school. No wonder the normally verbose Shumlin gets rather short-answered on his education plans. And no wonder he always preaches caution: Go slow on health care, go slow on impeachment, go slow on stopping the war, go slow on tax increases, etc. (Read: The current system is working just fine for him, thank you.)

These folks do NOT understand the economic plight facing Vermonters. They simply know how to gain the media/financial/political attention required to keep the great charade of the power elite in play for yet another election.

How many times must we fall for this nonsense?

[Sean]

Seems like she has her father's "nose" for shameless self-promotion.

[Coda]

I think they're pretty bad ass.