Fashion Central
As the last of the summer sun settles on New York, fashion designers will present their spring 2009 collections at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, beginning on Friday in Bryant Park. The week will include America's most recognized designers — Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein. It also will showcase the designers, such as Phillip Lim, Tracy Reese, and Yigal Azrouël, who are building their brands and expanding their influence. And perhaps most important, it will offer a major stage on which new talent can make a statement.
A sketch from the spring-summer 2009 collection of Yigal Azrouël.
The visibility provided by fashion week is now all the more prominent with the colossal success of "Project Runway." Its finalists will show their collections on September 12 — and one of its former participants, Malan Breton, will be showing his work on his own.
But with or without the attention of the television audience, American fashion is going strong.
