The DVF show rolls into town

diane von furstenberg takes a bow after her SS12 show in NY via zimbio.com

If you don’t already know by now, frockwriter has little doubt you soon will be aware that New York fashion doyenne Diane von Furstenberg is visiting Australia this week. First up, to present her Spring/Summer 2013 collection at Westfield Sydney on Wednesday evening, not far from her first Australian boutique, which opened in the development in late 2010. Secondly, to talk at a Business Chicks lunch on Thursday. Tickets for the latter sold out in a  week reports Business Chicks, which had to upgrade to a bigger venue at Sydney's Doltone House to accommodate 650 people. And finally, on the weekend, to unveil The DVF Suite – a penthouse at the recently refurbed Hayman Island luxury resort, which was of course flattened by Cyclones Yasi and Anthony in early 2011.

New York Fashion Week - the 97% fat free version

wwd

Well the Fall/Winter 09/10 show season blasts off in 10 hours' time in New York, with a few shows around town, followed by the kickoff of the main Mercedes Benz Fashion Week event at Bryant Park on the morning of Friday 13th. But with big guns such as Vera Wang, Betsey Johnson and Donna Karan swapping tent shows for modest showroom presentations - and Halston announcing as late as yesterday that it is ditching even a presentation for an el cheapo video - even those who are showing are playing it lowkey. The guest list of the week's biggest show, Marc Jacobs, has been razored from 2000 to 700, with the afterparty, in addition to, frockwriter hears, the usually no-expense-spared staging, nixed altogether. Toni Maticesvki is the only Australian designer brave enough to show in this bleak economic climate. Those US retailers still standing, are cash-strapped. Chiconomics and Recessionista are the fashion buzzwords du jour. Hell, even the models are being offered half rates – at least, those who weren’t already being paid in "trade". Abbey Lee Kershaw will miss the New York leg because of a knee injury, leaving Myf Shepherd, Catherine McNeil and Stephanie Carta as the main Oz models in town. Carta was just nominated as one of New York magazine’s Top 10 models to watch at the event. But look, if they can't get full rates then at least the mods can benefit from the CFDA's new line of model health merch. Can't they?

The Council of Fashion Designers of America's model health initiative was launched in January 2007, in response to the 2006 deaths of two South American models from eating disorders.

This season the CFDA has launched a line of limited edition merchandise designed by American fashion names such as Karan and Michael Kors, all items from which incorporate the “health is beauty” mantra.

WWD got the scoop on the line in today's issue. Pictured above is a Michael Kors tote which sells for US$25 at Bryant Park. All proceeds will go back to the CFDA Foundation.

It is well worth pointing out that the CFDA model health initiative takes a softly-softly approach to the subject of model weight, instead of a more draconian position.

CFDA executive director Steven Kolb tells WWD today:

“I feel validated that the choices we made two years ago not to require Body Mass Index (BMI), doctors or a health certificate, and make it about education and awareness really resonated. There has definitely been a change.”

There sure has been a change, especially in the limbs of certain elite runway models, which appear to getting more twig-like by the season - not to mention those of some of the young women who so obsessively follow their careers. Some more high-profile than others.

These parties, and their professional entourages who appear to have turned a blind eye to the issue, really should get a grip. Because it ain't pretty.

Elite athletes are routinely subjected to drug testing.

It is however highly unlikely that we are ever likely to see this sort of procedure implemented in the fashion arena. At the very least, it would pose a logistical nightmare.

And yet frockwriter can't help thinking that backstage etc drug testing might well yield some fascinating results.

A New York Fashion Week primer Part III

Y-3's perfect storm, new york sep 07

It doesn’t take a genius to work out why New York Fashion Week is the way it is. Paris first organised its fashion shows in 1868. New York was running loosely-structured ‘market weeks’ of shows for over 50 years before the Council of Fashion Designers of America [CFDA] finally pulled together the city’s first centralised designer collections showcase as recently as 1993, offering professional services and purpose-built venues at Bryant Park. The catalyst? A ceiling collapse at a Michael Kors’ show.

Like many other New York shows at the time, Kors' show had been staged in an 'edgy' downtown loft.

“That was the Austrian shot heard around the world” recalled Fern Mallis in an interview I did with her back in 2002.

Now the senior vice president of IMG Fashion, who moved over to IMG in 2001 when the company acquired the CFDA's "7th on Sixth" collections showcase at Bryant Park, Mallis was at the time of the Kors show disaster one month into her new job as CFDA executive director.

“The ceiling collapsed on models and in the lap of Suzy Menkes” said Mallis. “It was scandalous. The press went to town, criticising New York saying, ‘How can this industry, which is known for its glamour and style, be showing in these places where our lives are at risk? We live for fashion, we don’t want to die for it’".

She added, “The following season Mizrahi had a show in a SoHo loft and the power blew. [There were] One thousand people sitting there at night, scared to death in the dark, waiting for generators to kick in. The CFDA said, ‘This is crazy’. We organised a committee to check out spaces. Before, elevators broke down [en route into shows]. That happened more times that you can count”.

But with show numbers exploding almost 200percent over the past decade and the majority of shows now happening off-schedule and off-site, I personally can’t help wondering just how long it’s going to be before there’s another ceiling collapse - or something more serious.

There has already been one recent near-fatal incident at an off-site venue – at a show staged by Diane von Furstenberg who, as it happens, is now the CFDA president.

In 2005, in fact on the four year anniversary of 9/11, an entire section of von Furstenberg’s show light rig crashed onto her audience, injuring a number of people. The show had been staged inside von Furstenberg’s studio.

Cosmopolitan fashion editor Karen Hanes Larrain, who was reportedly knocked unconscious and required 30 stitches, sued. In February this year The New York Post reported that the suit was still pending – and that Hanes Larrain is also now suing von Furstenberg’s lighting designer Thierry Dreyfus.

Ever since, DVF’s shows have been back at Bryant Park where, in the opinion of the designer’s PR director Alexis Rodriguez, as she told events industry website BizBash:

"there's less liability; everything is properly checked and there's a whole crew working on all the other shows so everything is safe and secure….We've learned we're a much bigger company than we thought—we needed more seats than we had [on the night of the accident]. This big of an event must be done at a space that can handle this type of crowd".

running the gauntlet between Y-3 and rodarte, new york sep 07

On one stinking hot Manhattan afternoon in September last year, I spent more time thinking about the safety checks and balances at two consecutive off-site shows than I did the clothes.

The Adidas Y-3 show was on-schedule and Rodarte was off-schedule, but they were both located on the same Chelsea street.

Rodarte was after Y-3, however in order to get to Rodarte, you had to run the gauntlet through a water installation that had been erected by Y-3 over the High Line rail bridge.

At first glance, it looked like a water main had burst. But as you approached the bridge, and were greeted by a posse of brolly-laden PRs in rubber boots, you twigged what was going on. The atmosphere was one of mild pandemonium.

The show itself was staged under an adjacent section of the High Line.

It was a hugely expensive production which involved seating the audience on bleachers on either side of the bare concrete ‘runway’.

The “storm” soundtrack consisted of bursts of thunder and then the sound of torrential rain – which then quite literally started pouring behind our backs, via a system which pumped water down corrugated iron sheeting which ran the length of the seating.

The ground was wet – and by the end of it, so was a lot of the audience.


rodarte SS08 backstage, sep 07

Down the road, Rodarte was staged on the top floor of an industrial space, access to which seemed to be primarily via a couple of narrow staircases.

While waiting for the show to start, I spotted a production crew member holding a can of Evian over a large floor fan, spraying directly into its airstream.

Water dripped into the blades of the fan as she sprayed.

When I asked what she was doing the woman told me, “We don’t have any air conditioning so I thought it would cool things down” – apparently totally oblivious to the fact that she was standing with her feet entwined in the fan’s electrical cabling.


rodarte SS08 backstage, sep 07