POST- Style Journal

The debut of Fall 2010 Collections under the tents at Bryant park during New York’s Fashion Week (February 11-18), represented the last venue for designers in the Midtown location that has become one of the premiere showcases for the fashion world since 1993.  This fall, New York’s Fashion Week will move to Lincoln Center, located in the arts district that has an established association with music, opera, and dance. The mindset behind the change in geography is that it will bring more validation to fashion designers being recognized as verifiable artists in their own right.

With the move of the tents, however, that visible arena of where the spectacle of the runway shows takes place, comes a serious loss of the intricate but already deteriorating infrastructure of Midtown’s historic garment district. In a recent NY Times article, Eric Wilson noted that “[m]anufacturers who made their homes there selling buttons, trims, fabrics and threads, making samples, producing dresses and suits in factories along the side streets, have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the last decade.”

The network of physical spaces that are vital to the successes of the spectacle (in this case, the fashion runway show) reminds me of the architectural planning and building that took place in and around the Colosseum, the famous ancient Roman arena that functioned as a stage for gladiator combats, parading of exotic animals, and fantastic storytelling through elaborate stage sets.

What is less known about the Colosseum is that it was connected to other buildings located nearby. The buildings built around the imposing arena included a gladiator training center, a storehouse for show props, a compound with stables to house the animals, and a saniarium, where wounded gladiators were taken for medical help.

A viewer of the spectacles that took place in the Colosseum wouldn’t know it, but all these buildings were connected through a series of underground tunnels that led to the hypogeum, located beneath the stage of the Coloseeum’s arena. From the hypogeum, gladiators and animals entered/exited the arena through “elevators” and trap doors built into the floor. Surely, the intense preparation and commotion happening underground took place so that the spectacles happening above ground appeared effortless and magical.

Designers who are based in Midtown such as Nanette Lepore and Anna Sui recognize that their own successes have depended greatly on those suppliers/sewers/prototypers who help make their creations appear effortless and magical. In fact, Lepore and Sui spearheaded a campaign to protect what is left of the various manufacturers and suppliers still working in the Garment District. Sui was quoted as saying that her success as a designer was largely due to her “accessibility” to her local resources, and that “everything cannot just be available over the Internet.”

Surely, the spectacle that is NYC’s Fashion Week will live on, but it’s sad to think that with the upcoming change in venue, will come a change in how designers will source and produce their designs. No longer will the spectacle be a product of the intricate connection of immediate physical spaces, but one that is global and monstrous in proportion. Exciting, but also a little scary.