"I want to eat. I'm starving. I'm trying to make my way through to the cheese," she says.

Sitting in a private room after her show, with her parents by her side and husband Gavin Rossdale trying to find a television airing the U.S. Open, Stefani seems more thankful than triumphant.

"I can't believe I'm going into my fifth year," she says with a sigh. "It's so glamorous."

And maternal. After her models were done on the catwalk, Stefani, 37, walked out, waved to the crowd, basked in the applause, and promptly mouthed "Hey, baby!" to son Kingston, 1, who sat in the front row. She then scooped him up.

"I didn't want to walk halfway down and not get him. He's in that phase where if I waved to him and walked to him, it would have been disastrous," she says. "It's really hard. We've been traveling the world."