Inside the Daily Front Row Awards With Paris Jackson, Nicki Minaj, and W’s Own Stefano Tonchi

Following in the footsteps of Kaia Gerber, who once brought her whole family to the Daily Front Row’s Fashion Media Awards, Paris Jackson showed up to the sixth annual edition at the Park Hyatt in New York on Thursday night with her dog, Koa, whose name means “warrior” in Hawaiian, according to her entourage, at least. Koa, for the record, was loving the scene, hitting it off with everyone from Martha Stewart to Karl Lagerfeld’s favorite youngsters, Jameson and Hudson Kroenig, who’d been tasked with handing out the awards to the industry standouts being honored on the first night of New York Fashion Week.

Jackson, for her part, was tasked with introducing Cecilia Bönström, the artistic director of Zadig & Voltaire, the French contemporary label, which has been around for two decades—or, in Jackson’s words, “my whole life.” When she got to the brand’s new slogan, “Girls Can Do Everything,” Jackson kept up her rule-breaking streak by calling for the teleprompter to pause so that she could point out that “one of the many things that girls can do is vote.” (A few hours later, she posted and praised Jeremy Scott’s finale appearance in a T-shirt that read, in all-caps, “Tell your senator NO on Kavanaugh 202-902-7129.”)

Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearing was also clearly on the mind of one Amy Schumer, who showed up against her will to award her friend Ashley Graham the Fashion Force title. But thanks to a faulty teleprompter, Schumer was forced to wing it, starting off her speech with “What’s up, b—-!” She still, of course, managed to give Graham a proper introduction: “She’s cool, she’s hot, she makes us question our sexuality,” she said, adding that Graham has improved her outlook on her own size and body. “She’s changed the whole culture—she actually has. People are starting to respond, not because all of the sudden you guys are being good people, but because we look like America.”

By the time Graham had thanked her, saying she knew that such an event is Schumer’s “personal hell,” the comedian was already on her way out the door, stopping only to respond, “It is!” over her shoulder. Gigi Hadid and Nicki Minaj didn’t stick around for long, either—they were also headed to Jeremy Scott’s front row with Jackson—though both still managed to cause a spectacle, with Hadid showcasing images from V’s Cover of the Year, which features her underwater and atop a custom Fendi Jet-Ski. At that moment, Minaj’s Alexander McQueen gown ripped, shortly after her arrival. “My whole butt is out, but I need to introduce my girl Winnie,” the rapper, in her new purple hair, apologized as she shuffled her way off the stage to make way for this year’s Breakthrough Model, Winnie Harlow, whom she said was “not just the definition of a supermodel, but a role model—and she’s only 23.”

Since getting engaged is all the rage these days, it was only natural that Hailey Baldwin and Priyanka Chopra were also present. Declaring herself “really awkward when it comes to this kind of thing,” Baldwin mainly let her engagement ring and suddenly completely un–Justin Bieber like waist-length hair do the talking for her when named Fashion Media Personality. Chopra, on the other hand, didn’t get away without mention of her (also missing) fiancé; the evening’s host, Darren Criss, thanked her for accepting his wedding proposal—he kinda, sorta looks like Nick Jonas, ha, ha—before she introduced her Quantico costar and fellow tequila lover Jon Kortajarena as Male Model of the Year. Once onstage, Kortajarena marveled at his success despite his limited English: His career apparently started out with a shoot that saw him tell the agent the team had been “really touching my balls—but what I was really trying to say was ‘busting.’”

Those likely weren’t welcome words to fall upon the ears of Martha Stewart, who addressed Criss’s comments about his disorganization by telling him he could start with cleaning up his English. Then she introduced W’s very own editor in chief, Stefano Tonchi, who was awarded for Lifetime Achievement. After listening to Stewart’s stories about hanging out in his apartment, whether with him or its former tenant Leonard Bernstein, and fielding her compliments on his “awe-inspiring hair,” Tonchi took the stage. He quickly made the case that the crowd consider it a “midlife achievement,” since he’s never been more excited about the future, keeping his speech short and sweet. That also turned out to be the strategy of Irina Shayk, who closed out the night with a line that proved her worthy of her newfound title, Fashion Icon: “I’ll be really fast because I need to go to the bathroom again—and I could really use a drink.”

Related: Watch Paris Jackson and Her Band Perform Live in Front of Her Grandmother Katherine Jackson