USA: New York Fashion Week begins with a dash of red, a lot of heart and some debate on thin models

Fall 2007 Fashion Week kicks off in New York on Friday (February 2), with a celebrity studded fashion show to benefit heart disease research, attended by First Lady Laura Bush New York's semi-annual Fashion Week, forecasting the trends for Fall 2007, has bounded off to a heady start. While the Italian denim female label "Miss Sixty" show on Thursday (February 1) was technically the first in the line-up, the shows in the fashion tents at Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, only got going on Friday morning (February 2). The annual Heart Truth show, also called the Red Dress show on Friday was one of the biggest draws of celebrities and eye-balls. A New York Fashion Week event now for several seasons, the show sees women celebrities like Billie Jean King, Angela Bassett, Lauren Hutton, Phylicia Rashad walk down the runway in red dresses fashioned by top designers. It is an initiative supported by first lady Laura Bush, who attended the show, and aims at spreading awareness about heart disease. Backstage before the show, the over twenty well-known women who were going to walk down the runway in shades of red, mingled and got ready. Even as the fashion industry debates whether having too-thin models is unhealthy and whether the practice should be discouraged, the women modelling in the show displayed bodies of varying shapes and sizes. Female fashion models and many celebrities are "too thin," say four in every five consumers from around the world, a recent survey showed. A week before the start of the annual fashion season, trend tracker The Nielsen Company revealed what 25,000 people in 45 countries said about the body size of women strutting the world's catwalks and red carpets. The findings follow a worldwide outcry over the fashion industry's promotion of the stick-thin images which critics say contribute to eating disorders in young women. Actress Kim Cattrall, best known for her role as Samantha in "Sex and the City", wore a Carolina Herrera dress for Red Dress. On the red carpet before the show, Cattrall spoke of what she loved about her Grecian styled dress and how Herrera catered to her body-type. "This is designed by Carolina Herrera who's just an amazing woman to start with, and also she understands, I think very much a woman like who has very broad shoulders. She's tall herself so she designs for women who have very much the body type that I do and when she showed me the dress, I am so in love with the past and Grecian-Roman history and myth, I thought this captured something that I am very passionate about as well, so, here I am," said Cattrall. While fashion icon, Lauren Hutton, in a dress by Narciso Rodriguez, weighed in on the debate over thin models. "I think that they should eat. I mean I was twenty-one when I started modelling and I didn't have to start dieting, and then I dieted, I wouldn't eat two pork chops. I'd just eat one," said Hutton. Later, when the Red Dress participants took to the runway, the mood was light and the women swivelled and turned playfully, quite unlike the standard model-like haughtiness. Designer Betsey Johnson, who usually does cart-wheels after her own shows, seemed like she was about to do them here too, but then stopped playfully. If fashion mirrors a national mood, this week's catwalk extravaganza in New York will reflect the spirit of strong, confident women, observers predicted. And according to the Council of Fashion Designers of America, New York's Fashion Week is bigger than ever, with up to four shows going on at once. But even as everyone seemed to be having a good time at the busy tents in Bryant Park, questions are being raised about whether the Fashion Week venue is about to change. Last week, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg had declared that Bryant Park had outgrown the Fashion Week venue and suggested that it be moved elsewhere. The organizers of Fashion Week said that that is not likely to happen soon, but even more than before, some designers are already exploring newer venues with passion. The Miss Sixty show, for instance, was held at 7 World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, near where rebuilding is going on on the central World Trade Center site. Even as much of the 16-acre (6.5-hectare) World Trade Center site remains a dusty pit, plagued with political squabbles over its rebuilding and plans to attract companies back downtown, some fashion designers have decided it's the next hip thing as the scene for their runway shows. Owned by World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein, 7 World Trade Center is the first building on the site to have been erected since 9/11 and abuts Ground Zero. With 10 floors of the building yet to be leased, Italian denim female label "Miss Sixty" and American menswear designer John Varvatos are holding fashion shows for the first time, taking advantage of its top floors offering stunning 360-degree Manhattan views. Calvin Klein began the trend, hosting a Fashion Week party in the building late last year after the structure was officially opened. "Miss Sixty" creative director Wichy Hassan said it was important to hold the show downtown, "especially because the tragedy of 9/11." More than 400 fashion shows are set to take place during Fashion Week, with designers such as Diane von Furstenberg, Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Nicole Miller and Ralph Lauren unveiling fall collections.

ITN Source | February 3, 2007

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