OverDressed for Life

IMG’s blatant commercialism is embarrassingly tacky; Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is about as chic as the Vegas Strip.

– Bridget Foley, executive editor at Women’s Wear Daily.

IMG is the company hired to produce Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which just wrapped up last week in NYC. Ms. Foley is one voice among many who say that Fashion Week has become an overcrowded, celebrity-focused circus. Too many people and too many flashy runway shows spread out all over Manhattan =  miserable fashion journalists finding it hard to do their jobs.

It’s a shame. Not that I have ever been to New York City Fashion Week, but I have been to quite a few fashion shows and even the smaller ones are crowded, loud, and fast. There is so much coming at the audience, for journalists it’s difficult to think and take notes. We are, after all, trying to write about this stuff.

I prefer the quiet retro fashion show where the models come out and circulate among the attendees sitting at tables. I read that The Row (designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) do exclusive shows like this and celebrities aren’t invited to designer Derek Lam’s runway shows. He says he doesn’t want them there, taking the focus away from the clothes. And that is the point, isn’t it – the clothes?