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What do you all think?
Fashion's Spotlight Diverted by a Stampede of Tenderfeet
By CATHY HORYN
Published: September 13, 2004
Two weeks ago, at the Republican National Convention, Laura Bush wore a blue Oscar de la Renta suit, and the designer himself had a coveted seat in the Bush family box. "It was like an American experience," said Mr. de la Renta, a native of the Dominican Republic, who is what pollsters would probably identify as a swing designer. He makes clothes for Teresa Heinz Kerry, too.
But this week, as fashionistas hold a convention of their own in Bryant Park, casting votes for fuchsia and jungle prints, Mr. de la Renta's prestige seems diminished - and through no fault of his own. The runways have become a platform for anyone with a sewing machine and a press agent, a sequined version of "The Apprentice." But for designers like Mr. de la Renta or Ralph Lauren, who have done the most to raise American fashion's profile in the world, the shows offer a strange repudiation: the spotlight has shifted to the young and unknown, many of unproven talent.
There are 169 shows on the eight-day bill, which ends Wednesday, and to see them all you would need eyes not only in the back of your head but also at the sides, since many shows have to run concurrently to avoid the possibility that people will be looking at sundresses at midnight.
But mainly what you need during Fashion Week is a lower set of expectations. Fully one-third of those showing this season - like Doo.Ri, Vena Cava, Sebastian Pons, Sass & Bide - qualify as unknown, said Ruth Finley, publisher of the Fashion Calendar, the official schedule. But anyone who presumes that the crop of talent that is one step further along - new "stars" like Zac Posen, Behnaz Sarafpour, Proenza Schouler, Peter Som and Derek Lam - is better known to the public grossly overestimates the available disk space in the consumer's brain. So it might be closer to the truth to say three-quarters of Fashion Week's talent is unknown.
Last Friday, in a headline summarizing its runway report, Women's Wear Daily, the trade paper, sounded as if it were pushing frozen entrees rather than dresses: "A Little of This and a Little of That."
All too often designers seemed in search of an identity, preferably someone else's, an Azzedine Alaia (cotton eyelet) or a Miuccia Prada (coy-weird proportions). Or they were investigating the outer edge of mommy style, coddling it, perfecting it - without realizing that what they needed to do was to adapt it to fashion's new direction. But mostly they didn't seem to ask the question: Will this make a difference? Will anyone care?
Still, from the crowds at the shows, and the franticness around them - the celebrities, the gawkers, that moment when Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, bolts out the door trailed by her bodyguards and the photographers coo, "Anna, just one picture!" - well, you would think that something was happening. "They're just feeding the machine - E!, Vibe, Vogue, all those little Web sites," said Catherine Dietlein, an independent buyer for stores.
Certainly the mass media's enormous appetite for fashion has helped elevate the New York shows and made them seem more populist, more youth-friendly than those in Milan or Paris; here untested designers think they can get into the game (which is not cheap; a rough minimum for putting on a show in one of the tents is $100,000 for the designer who pays for everything, with no help from corporate sponsors). But the trouble is that the mass media, principally television and the Web, don't differentiate between good and bad, sophisticated and merely pretty. So an Esteban Cortazar, barely out of his teens, is treated equally with a Michael Kors, who is a mainstay of department stores across the country.
All fashion is by nature superficial, but, as if it were possible to dumb it down further, most fashion coverage seems to joyfully adhere to the famous line, "I'm so shallow I'm deep."
Fern Mallis, the executive director of 7th on Sixth, the organizer of Fashion Week, agrees that the news media have been tantalized by young designers, sometimes to their detriment, but says the runways should serve more than one point of view. "Everybody doesn't wear the minutiae of clothing that moves the fashion baton," she said. Referring to the tents and their three busy runways, she added: "This is a playing field that is filling up hundreds of stores. Nobody expects 170 designers to all be stars. I just want to give people the opportunity to be seen."
But it isn't clear that the runway can advance all comers. True, it led Mr. Posen, who showed for the first time two years ago, when he was just 21, to early fame and success. But for many others the runway is a trapdoor leading to obscurity. The best way to see this is to look at the schedule from September 2002. Then, as now, there were roughly 170 names, among them M.R.S., Todd Thomas and Children of Victoria. Today, they have either stopped showing or otherwise dropped from view.
Ms. Dietlein said that Mr. Thomas was an early proponent of the 50's retro look. "He did it before anyone," she said, adding that she had lost touch with Mr. Thomas. In any case, there is no time to mourn these designers, nor, conveniently, any need to. They have already been replaced by a fresh group of unknowns. Asked what the names Doo.Ri, Vena Cava, and Sass & Bide meant to him, David Wolfe, the fashion trend analyst for the Doneger Group, which consults with stores and manufacturers, said: "Practically nothing. These are not household names, and from what I've seen of their products, they don't promise to become household names."
Appraising the impact in general of the new talent, Mr. Wolfe said: "They don't have the world-class credibility that an Alexander McQueen has, or his talent, to be able to stand alone. This sounds cruel to say, but they're undermining the importance of American fashion."
A number of the newer designers deserve comment, if not commendation. Doo-Ri Chung, a former protégé of Geoffrey Beene's, works out of a space in her parents' dry-cleaning business in New Jersey, a cost-saving measure that suggests she knows the value of craft. She cuts and sews all her garments, which was reflected in the quality and human touch of her lovely, 24-piece collection.
Daniel Silver and Steven Cox, of Duckie Brown, continue to invest the men's wear label (in its seventh season) with a Zoolanderish charm, showing original prints and the odd sequined shoulder bag.
"It's Mount Olympus at this point when you're talking about Calvin, Donna and Ralph," Mr. Silver said. "We just want to give life to our passion. At some level you just have to be brave and naïve."
Sure, the mountain is high. But maybe American designers have to find a different path. Juicy Couture and the premium denim companies did it by thinking outside the old conventions. "Juicy is an unneurotic look," Ms. Dietlein said. "It's just about saying, 'I want to look cute and have pink on.' "
A toe's eye view at Sass & Bide, among the nearly 179 shows causing neck strain during Fashion Week, which ends on Wednesday.
SASS & BIDE: A slinky draped print dress, reflecting a girl-warrior, rock-inspired look, was shown with leather cuffs, over-the-knee black boots and a feathered headdress.
What do you all think?
The governing bodies are not as selective as they should be. I understand that they want to give newcomers a chance but I think designers should have to prove themselves a bit before they have a show at such an important event.
