Grand central: Zac Posen's 50-finger discount

By all accounts one of the most remarkable shows in what has been a very strange New York Fashion Week, Zac Posen’s Thursday night presentation earned him a standing ovation. Dreaming of multiple Steinway pianos for his runway, Posen contacted the American piano maker – which he describes as “the last luxury company in America” – and told them he could only afford one. Steinway not only provided five Steinway grand pianos for nix, they threw in five Steinway Exclusive artists: the 5 Browns, five Mormon siblings from Utah who call themselves "classical music's first family of piano virtuosos". The show starred Australians Myf Shepherd and Catherine McNeil [whose gf Freja Beha Erichsen follows directly behind McNeil at the 44 second mark]. Here is IMG's edited video of the show. And here's a chat with Posen, recorded in Melbourne last March, when he was out for the release of his Target capsule collection - during which interview he discusses the concept of "fashiontainment".

Zac Posen fashions the vote

zac posen on fashion the vote

Trust a fashionisto to turn an election into a fashion moment. Following on from the spate of Obama-homage merch from New York to Paris to Auckland (where World has just released a lim-ed ‘OBAMA-RAMA’ T) comes Zac Posen’s Fashion The Vote initiative. The New York fashion young gun encouraged any US punters who were thinking along the Obama-Biden voting lines to send in street style shots of themselves in what they wore as they voted. As the result of this so very historic – whichever way you look at it - 2008 election draws closer, Posen's results are rolling in.

Check out Posen’s Fashion The Vote site for the complete portfolio, which is being updated. Ditto an amusing intro video recorded by Posen, wearing a campaign button-emblazoned Russian sailor’s shirt, as he delivers his keynote address, complete with mandate:

“Make the future. Look good”.

Can’t help thinking Posen may fancy himself as a future politician. Hell if Reagan, Eastwood and Schwarzenegger can do it, why can’t a fashion designer?




all images: fashion the vote

There’s a mix of ages, races and genders on the site – and frockwriter is certain that we also spotted at least one child, one cartoon and one poodle.

Although the latter votes presumably don't count, with just 64percent of US citizens over the age of 18 voting in the 2004 election, candidates presumably need all the voter encouragement they can get.

Recent reports do in fact point to unprecedented voter turnout in some states.

On the subject of fashion and politics, here’s the Jacquetta Wheeler blog for anyone who didn’t spot this on Style.com’s Style Notes blog on Monday. The British model has been in the US working as a volunteer on the Obama campaign.

And here is an interview I did with Posen in March when he was out for the Melbourne Fashion Festival, in which he talks about fashion politics, complacent youth and “the American monologue of chic banality”.