The End of NYC Fashion Week in Bryant Park : Lincoln Center to host starting in 2010

[arlekindearrabal]

Wintour said there are "a lot of areas" behind the tents where the public can still enjoy the park. "Maybe they don't have as large a space, but they certainly have a space," she said.

 

[softgrey]

update...
press release...

STATEMENT FROM MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ON

FASHION WEEK REMAINING IN BRYANT PARK

“The fashion industry is a vital part of our City’s economy providing more than 150,000 jobs for more than 15,400 businesses. It is paramount that we ensure the long-term success of both the industry and Fashion Week, which takes place in Bryant Park twice a year. Fashion Week plays a significant part in the industry’s New York City success story given their world class reputation, the buzz and excitement that they generate about our City, and the ancillary business that is generated each year. The shows have an economic impact of about $177 million annually, which does not include the millions of dollars spent on wholesale apparel merchandise in the weeks that follow.

“Bryant Park itself is another terrific success story. Now a jewel of the Park system, few recall the days when it was considered a municipal embarrassment, emblematic of New York’s decline. With an extensive redesign and restoration in the 1980’s, it has become one of the most active public spaces in the City, and the park has played a large role in the overall economic rebirth of the surrounding commercial area.

“While it is clear that due to its success, Fashion Week has outgrown the facilities available at Bryant Park, Fall Fashion Week, which takes place in February, is just around the corner, and we have determined that the search for a suitable home will require further analysis and planning. The City will continue to work with IMG and the fashion industry to locate a permanent home for Fashion Week.”

 

[zamb]

thanks for the info Softie

 

[JJohnson]

yea I just got that in my email too! OMG what does this mean!? Perhaps everything might move to Chelsea, but then again Suzy Menkes told me she hated coming all the way down there for shows..... Bryant Park is a very convienent location anyway (for Conde Nast people cuz the building is right around the corner) but I wonder whats going to happen...

 

[JJohnson]

too far. many editors need to get to the destination , pronto. it's too congested in the surrounding vicinity. ain't gonna work. besides, there will be alot of bitching and moaning in that area.

some freelancers love using the Path Train to get to Bryant Park, cheaper and closer besides cabs and NY subways. Bryant Park is by far the only ideal place to hold such venue. it's centralized to other venues that are not held at the tents.

I know! I always found myself using that subway hehehe! Also Conde Nast is right there and I mind you ALL the fashion magazine's are there! (kinda scary) but anyways, where else can this go?

 

[LostInNJ]

Thanks for the update Softgrey...I am still anxious to find out where fashion week ends up, though.

 

[softgrey]

i think everyone is lostinNJ...

 

[JJohnson]

i hope its not in the middle of no where!

 

[crow_watcher]

Usually in cases like this, the state of New Jersey will offer companies, sports franchise (i.e. Jets, Giants and Nets) and in this case the fashion industry from New York to make a home in New Jersey. Don't be surprise in a few years New York Fashion week is in Secaucus, N.J.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I really doubt that!

 

[LostInNJ]

I really doubt that!

I'm with you there...The day that happens I think pigs will be flying

 

[softgrey]

Usually in cases like this, the state of New Jersey will offer companies, sports franchise (i.e. Jets, Giants and Nets) and in this case the fashion industry from New York to make a home in New Jersey. Don't be surprise in a few years New York Fashion week is in Secaucus, N.J.

...
yeah right!!...

 

[crow_watcher]

^^ Yeah it sounds far fetched and I truly doubt it would move to New Jersey. But don't think for a minute N.J. wont put an offer on the table.

 

[JJohnson]

I really doubt that!

I agree! lolol oh dear...NJ fashion week!? aaaaah! haha but actually I was thinking it would be put in a place that will be most convient for the ppl at Conde Nast (their building is right there down the street) because we all know Anna Wintour doesnt want to go far! haha

 

[smartarse]

it's gonna suck it's not going to be at Bryant Park permanently. I thought the amount of shows held there suffice. It balances that there are shows held there while others chose different venues but still situated within radius.

The only one I can think of that can be held as permanent and quite enormous for such event is Jacob Javitz . But i can assure you it's not an ideal area for strolling, gawking, lounging , eating (lunch/snacking) and especially pedestrian crossings.

 

[model_mom]

N.Y. / Region


A Park Cleans Up Its Act (Gum Removal Aside)

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times










By ALAN FEUER
Published: October 20, 2006
NOT long ago, Dan Biederman, who runs the Bryant Park Corporation, was chatting with his staff about the problems that plagued the park in the dirty days of 1979. Those could be summarized as thus: drugs, rats, graffiti and the stench of urine.
The park has come a long way since then, when Mrs. Astor was, as the saying goes, “accosted by a youth” (species: Adolescentis drug-dealeum) and the Rockefeller brothers pitched a fit. They plucked Mr. Biederman from relative obscurity to fix the park, which he has done so well that it is now — at 900 people per acre per sunny day, he said — the most densely used public space on the planet.
With success, however, have come the problems of success, which in the case of Bryant Park have included a loud preacher with personal-space issues, a sukkah-dwelling rabbi who refused to go away, and Howard Dean, who held an 2004 campaign rally there, importing a graffitied backdrop to where there was no graffiti.
Then last month there was the latest: a landlord-tenant dispute, which may be the only one of its kind where you actually rooted for the landlord. IMG, the company that owns Fashion Week, got into a tussle with the park and is likely to be booted after next year’s February shows. It was determined, Mr. Biederman said, that the editors and models were simply too disruptive and needed too much space.
“We try not to whine at things that are not a big deal,” Mr. Biederman said the other day (after saying he wasn’t at all bitter about the spat, then quickly asked that his comments be stricken from the record). “And the fashion shows go under that.”
It would be hard to locate a human being less physically indicative of the high-gloss, high-attitude world of high fashion than Dan Biederman. Which is not to say Mr. Biederman lacks style. He is tall, well dressed, well spoken, wears his hair short, is bespectacled, does not look 53, attended Princeton and Harvard, lives in Chappaqua, N.Y., gets excited at the size and shape of garbage cans and hikes each summer in the Alps. His mentor was the sociologist William H. Whyte whose best known work is “The Organization Man.”
“I’m a half business, half government guy,” said Mr. Biederman, who also runs the 34th Street Partnership and has worked as the master of Bryant Park’s nine acres since 1980.
He knows everything about the place. The lawn comes from the eastern shore of Maryland, he said. The tables each cost $75. The average “dwell time” is, based on empirical observation, more than an hour during lunch and in good weather. The guy who counts the people has a pair of tallying devices: one in his left hand to tally women, one in his right to tally men.
On good days, Mr. Biederman said, 4,600 people eat lunch in the park (split nearly 50-50 men to women). Many sit on the Bryant Park Lunch Chair, a college lecture hall model with a custom cupholder. Mr. Biederman holds the patent.
It is striking, he says, the amount of arcane knowledge one can learn in the seemingly homogenous discipline of park management. One learns, for instance, that bubble gum dropped on a sidewalk takes three weeks to change from pink to black. One also learns that the three worst occasions for vandalism in New York City are New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day and whenever Rangers games let out.
Then there are the odd glimpses into the city’s psyche, which mainly derive from Mr. Biederman’s own time in the park.
On gender: “Men will sit down at a table with crumbs near a pile of litter within range of the smell of someone who has just urinated. Women, on the other hand, are much more sensitive to danger, discomfort and disorder.”
On race: “Mediterranean types, blacks, Jews, Hispanics, even some Asians have a better sun tolerance than the Irish, English and Scandinavians. If there is a group of office buddies having lunch in the park, it is usually the Irish guy facing away from the sun.”
On national character: “Did you know that 67 million Americans describe themselves as amateur gardeners?”
Mr. Biederman describes his mission as “building a crowd” in Bryant Park to which end he has brought in attractions like free movies, a carousel, a piano man, an outdoor reading room and a strange commercial event this summer in which acrobats selling underwear performed a trapeze act in Jockey shorts over Avenue of the Americas.
There is also a Wollman-style ice skating rink that will open at the end of the month and would have stayed through March but for the fashionistas about whom Mr. Biederman is not bitter. In his mind the perfect crowd for Bryant Park is anyone of any race or socioeconomic group who does not spit, play a loud radio, curse within earshot of another human being or feed the pigeons.
HIS most endearing quirk may be the notebook he carries in which he jots improvements for the park. This is a constant process that reveals his love of tiny details.
Today it may be a better newspaper box or ice cream cart; tomorrow cleaner bathrooms or more closely pruned trees.
Gum removal is an ever-present problem.
“If you’re looking for a way to end this thing you can always say that right now we’re looking for someone to solve that problem in particular,” he said.
“And we’ll pay a lot of money.”

 

[JJohnson]

Ugh I cant imagine where fashion week will go...they have serious issues for removing it.....I hope they all become unfashionable! lol

 

[JJohnson]

any new news on this?

 

[Xone]

any update on this??

 

[LostInNJ]

Clothes Fit For a Peanut
Snoopy fashion show to hit Bryant Park

Friday, April 13, 2007

(NEW YORK) Snoopy is coming to the Tents. The iconic beagle, and brainchild of legendary cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, will be the subject of a colorful runway fashion show entitled MetLife presents Snoopy in Fashion this September at the Bryant Park Tents, Joi Gordon, chief executive officer of Dress for Success Worldwide, announced at her company’s 10th-anniversary gala Thursday night. The show is being produced in conjunction with United Media, which syndicates and licenses the Peanuts comic strip brand worldwide in cooperation with the estate of the late Schulz. Isaac Mizrahi and Betsey Johnson are among the designers that have signed on thus far to design Peanuts-inspired couture for the fashion show, proceeds of which will benefit Dress for Success. Fashion canine lovers will recall, however, that this isn’t the first time Snoopy has been besieged with a vast designer wardrobe. In 1988, Chronicle Books released Snoopy in Fashion, a photo-heavy based book that featured the chic pooch and his sister, Belle, modeling canine couture by 95 of fashion’s biggest names, including Karl Lagerfeld, Mary McFadden, Issey Miyake, Gianni Versace, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, and even L.L. Bean.
JIM SHI

www.fashionweekdaily.com

...So I'm guessing fashion week in Bryant Park is back on, however, they did say that the fall shows would be the last time showing there.