NY Fashion Week a fascinating hassle

Q. Lois, when you say “New York Fashion Week,” is that a week of shows about men’s and women’s clothing? I thought they said that men’s clothes are included.

Is it all in Madison Square Garden or some convention center big enough to handle all the wardrobes (and the egos)?

A. New York Fashion Week is a series of many, many independent shows and, in fact, it is now two series: one men’s and one women’s.

As I mentioned last week, Fashion Week continues to grow year to year in popularity.

The first official Fashion Week began as “Press Week” in the 1940s. Members of the American fashion industry and press who could not go to Paris because of the war stayed home. Press Week eventually turned into Fashion Week. The shows were staged in locations scattered all over the city, which made them hard to get to at times.

Eleanor Lambert, a legend in the fashion industry who founded the International Best Dressed List and the Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award, had the idea to bring the shows together at a main location. In 1994 the runways found their first home at “the tents” in Bryant Park.

I remember back on 9/11 in 2001, Fashion Week was canceled and the tents were turned into temporary missing persons’ retrieval centers.

The shows outgrew the Bryant Park location and moved to Lincoln Center in 2010. Last year, word got out that Fashion Week was moving again, but no one knew where it would be. Apparently, this question was never answered, because the shows are once again scattered about the city — only now there are many more of them.

It has become increasingly difficult to find out who is showing and where. There’s no big umbrella anywhere.

Where each show will be presented is, of course, dependent on budget. Each designer stages his own show, but not everyone can afford an elaborate presentation at a luxe venue. Besides, it has become very impressive to unearth interesting venues, unique locations people will talk about. Some designers host shows in their own showrooms. Sometimes, the locations are more exciting than the clothes.

One unexpected location was in an amazing building in Soho, a converted power station that is now a private home (a five-story brownstone where Gwyneth Paltrow once lived). Hickey Freeman presented its newest collection of classic traditional men’s clothing. Marked by luxurious fabrics and superb tailoring, the upscale menswear line was displayed in lifestyle vignettes, groups of perfectly dressed male models, artfully posed. One grouping of eight models dressed in British-inspired looks from country tweeds to elegant black-tie attire (reminiscent of Downton Abbey) was positioned in front of a 20-foot-high fireplace wall in the upstairs living room.

Other tableau groups were posed throughout the house. But the real surprise came as I passed an open door on the second floor. Inside the door was a large indoor swimming pool, the full length of the brownstone, where a group of young men in swimsuits were playing water polo! I thought they were models, too, until I read the show’s printed program and its thanks to the Columbia University Men’s Water Polo team.

When I described the show and its setting to one of my sons as “how the other half lives,” he responded, “Or, perhaps more precisely, how the other ¹/₁₀th of 1 percent live!”

Shows were held in an impressive Midtown venue known as Gotham Hall. Constructed in 1923 as The Greenwich Savings Bank building, the imposing structure with a soaring cathedral-like domed ceiling is an example of early New York bank buildings, based on ancient Roman amphitheaters.

You need to realize that a big part of Fashion Week is its ”hurry up and wait” pace. If a show is scheduled for 3 p.m., guests begin lining up between 2:30 and 2:45. When the doors open, people find their seats (not those with “standing” tickets, of course, or those with “priority standing” tickets), and wait more. It’s a lot of waiting for a show that doesn’t last more than 20 minutes.

The first two rows are reserved for A-listers; the photographers seem to recognize them all and take photos for their publications.

The lights dim, the music blasts, and the show begins. The models, who are dressed in that designer’s clothes, all sport sleek hairdos — for women, an impossibly sleek pony tail — or else a wildly-teased huge style, and sometimes long curls.

The models walk the runway one at a time, then disappear backstage. In the past, the last garment shown was a wedding gown, but today it is a particularly elaborate example of the show’s pieces. Then, as is often demonstrated on dramas and other television, all the models walk the runway once again in close succession to much applause. The designer appears briefly to take his bow. The surprise is how often the designer is wearing rather ordinary, if not scruffy, clothes that conspicuously contrast with the elegance of the designs he just championed.

Back when the shows were concentrated in Bryant Park and Lincoln Center, press attendees used to receive handsome press bags full of Fashion Week goodies, ­a lower level version of what they have at the Oscars. Mini shopping bags with the designer’s logo were placed on each of those two front rows. Usually, the bag held simple gifts of shampoo or makeup, but sometimes it had a real treasure, such as perfume or a watch from Betsey Johnson’s collection.

I did not see many treasure bags this year. For the most part, giveaways are a thing of the past.

So, economic recovery? We in the fashion press don’t believe it.

But maybe the water polo team feels differently.

Send fashion queries of any stripe to Male Call:

Lois.Fenton@prodigy.net

High Profile on 03/06/2016

NY Fashion Week a fascinating hassle