Great! Fashion week is starting tomorrow in New York and we are all going!
This is really going to be different this time with fashion playing in the same field as art. For the first time – don’t you know it by now?- the shows will be held at Lincoln Center instead of Bryant Park.
Smart move for the City as Mayor Bloomberg will probably confirm tomorrow when launching the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week which will be held at Damrosch Park from September 9 to 16. Spaces will be bigger. Also it is right there in the center of Manhattan with lots of subways and buses stopping nearby. It is great business for the city, so they say: “The semi-annual fashion events draw more than 230,000 attendees every year, generating more than $770 million .”
Moreover, it is a symbol: Fashion is moving into art territory. These two worlds have flirted for a while and the opening of the Costume Institute at the Met was a symbol in itself. Moving to Lincoln Center is a consecration. There is the Met and there is Fashion Week. I am all for it as I do think Fashion is Art … at times. But what about this famous First Row pinned down in the New York Times this morning this mix of journalists, stylists, bloggers and often wannabe celebrities? It is a crowd far off from the sophisticated world of chamber music and operas?
We can also look at it this way: who are the great divas today? Is it not Anna Wintour and Lady Gaga? Lets just hope they will animate the first row and start singing… for the back.
Pascale Richard 