Feb. 10, 2012
A Champion for Young Designers Returns to Fashion Week
By Alexandra Sifferlin
After a two-year hiatus, Gen Art, the champion for emerging talent in arts and entertainment, returned with a comeback show to kick off New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9. Established in 1995, the company showcased up-and-coming designers — including Zac Posen and Phillip Lim — filmmakers and artists. The company, and all of its fashion shows and film festivals, shut down when corporate support dwindled in the wake of the recession. But on Thursday night, Gen Art was back with the "New Garde Fashion Show."
New Garde showcased three designers who are about to pass the "tipping point of renown with a full-fledged European-style fashion show. The event was similar to its famed Fresh Faces show, which features several emerging designers such as Ann Yee and Project Runway winner Jeffrey Sebelia and was also re-launched in September. Hosted by Entourage actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, the runway show presented designs by Gemma Kahng, Samantha Pleet and sibling duo line William Okpo. It was also the first show to collaborate with a charity; all proceeds were donated to the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign under the Enough Project.
As emerging designers, the hardest thing is to grab everyone's attention. All of us are kicking and screaming for attention and Gen Art is excellent at pulling press and buyers to check out our work, says Lizzy Okpo, who designs William Okpo, a women's wear brand, with her sister Darlene. On Thursday, the pair showed their New York public school inspired line of hot pink overalls and striped boxing jackets.
The event kicked off to the beats of DJ Harley Viera-Newton of Roc Nation as partygoers mingled among Gen Art alumni like Whitney Port from the reality show, The City. with complimentary cocktails and champagne. Besides one screaming baby and Kahngs first model accidentally flashing the audience, the show was a smooth-sailing, yet provocative debut.
All three designers kept to their vastly contrasting aesthetics. Kahng headlined the show with her leather and lace filled line followed by Samantha Pleet's flower child themed collection described by the designer as a revival of Romanticism. William Okpo closed the show with a funky collection of mixed plaid and neon. Yet the party continued after the runway lights dimmed. Guests kept the venue open late in a classic Gen Art after-cocktail-party—pleased the organization hasn't lost its party-throwing touch.
Gen Art began in the NYU law school dorm room of Former Gen Art CEO, Ian Gerard, who, with the help of his brother Stefan, launched the organization to showcase new, young visual artists. Last May, the Gerard brothers posted an online letter to fans saying, It is with an extremely heavy heart that we are posting this. After struggling for the past 18 months since the economic crisis, Gen Art has finally succumbed to the recession." The close was unexpected to fashion players outside the company. It was a complete surprise, Tatiana von Furstenberg, director of a Gen Art winning film Tanner Hall told the New York Times. There was speculation at the time that the true reason the organization was closing was because of mismanagement. A Gen Art tipster told Gawker, Gen Art deserves to die. It doesn't support artists, it supports wannabe socialites who need another party to be seen at. Hopefully people will realize this and give their money to a real charity.
Marc Lotenberg, CEO of Gen Art and founder of 944 Magazine, a monthly fashion, entertainment and lifestyle publication,is credited with helping the organization resurface. After 944 gained several employees from Gen Art layoffs, he researched where the company's assets had gone after the bankruptcy. He eventually approached publishing company Sandow Media, who acquired Gen Art and agreed to help stabilize the company in its first year of re-launch. After raising additional capital, Lotenberg became CEO. Designers depend on Gen Art to help showcase and completely fund their lines to expose them and catapult them to the next phase of their career, says Lotenberg.
At least for now, well-heeled fans can expect more events from Gen Art as fashions prodigal son renews its record of debuting the Next Big Thing.
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Fashion Week: Five Questions with Designer Nicole Miller
By Lily Rothman | February 10, 2012
Matthew Peyton / Getty Images for Elle Magazine
Designer Nicole Miller
Best known for her colorful gowns worn by celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Jessica Simpson, fashion designer Nicole Miller looked to designs from the past for her fall/winter collection, which debuts Friday. Miller tells TIME about how Jimi Hendrix influenced her new collection, what it’s like being a New Yorker at New York Fashion Week and which celebrity she’d like to dress next.
What is the inspiration for your fall collection?
It’s kind of taken on a 1970s look to it. I’d seen this picture of Jimi Hendrix that I really liked but, you know, I don’t stop at one thing. I started researching that period and then I was looking at these old pictures of Marianne Faithfull and old movies from the ’70s like Zabriskie Point and Wonderwall. It just sort of got me thinking about how all those times parallel today. They were marching on Wall Street back then and they’re marching on Wall Street now. I just got very into that whole time period and used a lot of that for inspiration, and put a contemporary twist to it. It’s also very colorful. A lot of my collections were very black and dark, and I’m just getting excited about color again.
Any particular color?
A lot of purple, of course. That’s been a good color for us recently, so just various different shades of it. Also greens, I’m really into these foresty greens. They look really fresh to me.
What’s your favorite piece from the collection?
I have this alpaca-sleeved jacket, where the body is made out of metal and leather. I found this great leather that’s used with metal, so it has this kind of great crush to it, and then it’s got alpaca sleeves. It’s fur, but it’s food fur.
What’s it like being a New Yorker at New York Fashion Week?
When the Europeans come here, they have to do a lot of packing and they have to set up shop here, so I guess it’s harder for them. We just have to take our office up to Lincoln Center. It must be very complicated for them.
Is there any particular celebrity you’d like to dress who you haven’t had a chance to yet?
I like that Amanda Seyfried. I don’t know how to say her name, but I think she’s cute.
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A Brief History of New York Fashion Week
New York's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is the must-attend event of editors, celebs and designers from around the world. But how did this fashion phenomenon come to be? We take a look at the event's stylish history.
By Erin Skarda |February 9, 2012
Associated Press
Fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert poses in this Dec. 23, 1963 photo.
Prior to World War II, American fashion didn’t get much — if any — time in the spotlight. Instead, the world looked to the chic city of Paris for sartorial inspiration. Fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar filled their pages with the aspirational attire of the French, even if the styles weren’t readily available to the average American consumer.
This all changed in 1943. As France was fighting in World War II, fashion journalists were unable to get to Paris for their biannual style excursions. A prominent fashion publicist named Eleanor Lambert recognized that this was an opportunity to solidify America’s place among the international fashion community. Through her work at the New York Dress Institute, a group of clothing labor unions and manufacturers, Lambert pieced together a showcase of American designers for the national and regional media. She called the event Press Week.
According to Vanity Fair, prior to Press Week, regional reporters had been unable to cover New York’s fashion scene without shadowing buyers in their local stores. In an effort to change that, Lambert offered to pay the expenses of any out-of-town journalists who traveled to New York for Press Week. Fifty-three designers’ shows took place at the Plaza Hotel in a block schedule format, unlike today, when shows are hosted all over the city. Every editor received packets with photos of each runway look, as well as press releases, much like today, but the shows were exclusively for the press. Buyers were required to schedule showroom visits to view the collections.
The results were everything Lambert hoped for, and perhaps more. Not only did the editors show up, but also when the fashion magazines released their next issues, their pages were full of American designers. According to Slate, the American styles were praised as being “modern, streamlined and flattering,” and because of the success of the inaugural Press Day, the event continued through the late 1950s at various locations.
For the next three decades, designers continued to stage their own shows throughout New York City, but there wasn’t one unified location like we know today. It wasn’t until 1990, when plaster fell from the ceiling of a loft onto the models during a Michael Kors show, that the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) decided to take action.
According to Slate, Fern Mallis, vice president of IMG, began to search for a location to host the week-long event. The designers were hesitant at first, but after a test run at the Macklow (now the Milennium) Hotel on 44th Street, they embraced the idea. In the Spring of 1994, Mallis and the CFDA launched New York Fashion Week in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, essentially bringing order to the event once more, at least in the scheduling. Shortly thereafter, the CFDA was able to secure sponsors — such as Mercedes-Benz, for which the event is now named — and cultivate the precious press list, which is almost as impenetrable as the entrance to the shows.
“The Tents,” as the Bryant Park venue became known, were both glamorous and senselessly hectic. As New York Fashion Week attracted more celebrities and fashion insiders, the crowd swelled to immense proportions, with swarms of people crowding the front entrance and lobby area for a glimpse of fashion’s A-listers. The tents eventually could no longer accomodate the event’s year-after-year expansion, and in September 2010, the CFDA and IMG Fashion, the company that produces Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, moved their tents — and the masses — further uptown to Lincoln Center.
Some designers were disappointed in the decision to relocate. “The Bryant Park shows forever changed the fashion industry,” designer Tommy Hilfiger told TIME’s Feifei Sun. “They united designers in an unparalleled situation.” But with the addition of digital check-ins, free wi-fi and 30% more space, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week was given the stylish space that it always needed, plus room to accommodate new generations of designers, models, editors and buyers who are looking for their big break on one of fashion’s most famous stages.
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Fashion Week: 10 Questions for Michael Kors
Source: www.time.com
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