February 7, 2007-- Fashionistas

Meanwhile, back in New York, it’s Fashion Week! What the historians, economists, and cultural theorists will make of this one is anyone’s guess. But the NY Times and especially the International Herald Tribune, as ever, are doing their best to figure things out and spot the trends. (Sample article linked below.)

As we struggle here on Mallorca with the strong-Euro/weak-dollar (our morning cortados once a bargain at the equivalent of about 80 cents a cup now costs nearly $2.00) think about Gucci, Bulgari, and Louis Vuitton. They manufacture their stuff mainly in Europe and have to pay for things in Euros; but then they have to sell most of their bags and shoes and rings in weak currency markets such as the U.S. and Japan where the yen and dollar at hovering near all-time lows. Forget cortados—what’s gonna happen to poor Miutcia Prada when she finds her lower Broadway store in Soho still full of $1,000 belts at the end of the season?

Then there is the even bigger worry about New York City itself. Is it still the capital of, well, everything? Particularly does it still have the intercultural synergy that is required for creativity and entrepreneurship in, well, everything. To wonder with Pulitzer-Prize-winning Mike Wallace (no, not that Mike Wallace) how will New York retain its “edgy pre-eminence as global crucible, the place par excellence where the world’s peoples come to clash and fuse and create the future”?

Maybe we in New York do have a problem. Kim Hastreiter, editor of the ultra-hip magazine Paper, says, “New York feels like a stagnant city that doesn’t have artists anymore, because the artists have to have trust funds to live here.”

But this week we’re talking about fashion, and so is Kim right, is that action moving elsewhere? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough clashing and fusing for a while, but I guess if we’re talking pocketbooks, I can still live with it.

So let’s check out the scene and then of course the fashion itself.

The scene part of Fashion Week is to some even more important than the dresses, and thus there is always the need to come up with new places to party. Where razor-thin socialites (more about that in a second) can bang up against fashionistas and actors such as Adrien Brody. Opened a couple of weeks ago, just in time, is The Box, brainchild of the ubiquitous downtown fixture Serge Becker and Simon Hammerstein, grandson of Oscar Hammerstein II, yes of Oh, What A Beautiful Morning fame, where EVERYONE was to be found.

Another Box partner, Richard Kimmel (I assume of the trust-fund-Kimmels), cried, “Where is our Stork Club,” referring to the classier-than-classy supper club of the 40s and 50s which was Walter Winchell’s haunt. So he and Serge and Simon gave us our Stork Club. Located in a former sign factory, it features what the IHT calls “low-life archeological” style, which in The Box’s case means booths with overlapping bordello-type wallpaper and glass showcases filled with encrusted old bottles. I hope it will still be open when we get back from Spain in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, back on the runway the lead story is all about “size-zero” models. Too-thin girls were banned recently in Milan and London so what was New York to do? As the home to numerous great universities, the Big Apple kicked off the week, not unexpectedly, with a conference that featured medical and health experts who went on and on about how the fashion industry can educate the public about the early signs of eating disorders and how they might demand that backstage be a smoke- and alcohol-free free environment where only healthy foods are available. That should get the job done.

But then, most important, how did the designers themselves, in the clothes they showed, respond to this anorexic challenge?

To quote Suzy Menkes, the IHT’s fashion doyenne for at least a hundred years, here’s what Diane Von Furstenberg came up with [I will interject snide comments]:

She introduced a new ease and took a step away from her [body-revealing] iconic wrap dress. Instead, working on a Spanish theme, inspired by her student days in Madrid [where Diane studied . . . ?] and the recent Pedro Almodóvar movie “Volver” [not nominated for an Academy Award], the collection was a vision of a strong, independent woman [and starred the very-curvy Penelope Cruz].

What did she wear [that independent woman]? Think of a smock top or buxom blouse [that should cover a multitude of not eating], teamed with a full skirt [ditto] that might have a strong graphic print reflecting the artistic work of Joan Miró [no comment]. As in Spanish paintings, black was used as a color [think Goya], with the light reflecting on taffeta or lace to create its own patterns [think the Mediterranean].

I, on the other hand, am thinking cortado.