FASHION IN REAL TIME

Covering news in real time couldn’t have been better tested than during Fashion Week in New York City. Filling the rows along side esteemed fashion journalists, editors and buyers were bloggers.  And, using pen and paper to editorialize the latest garments to hit the runway –that will eventually hit retail stores globally– was one-upped by camera phone photos with direct uploading capability to the Web.

With hundreds of fashion blogs craving content on what’s to come, bloggers and journos alike were transmitting looks as they came down the runway. As a hired gun for  the Style File Group, I shot full-on packages with a Flipcam. Quick time videos replaced tapes and P2 cards used in traditional over-the-shoulder cameras. With a light weight tripod (that fit in my everyday, oversized-handbag) and the palm-sized camera I could sit front row with an up-close view, far from the anthill of camera people.

The video I shot could be uploaded using any laptop or computer, which I later accessed when time to edit. As we’ve all become part of the Youtube generation, we are much more forgiving of video and sound that doesn’t look studio shot.

It’s my contention that as goes fashion coverage so to will go hard news. What do you think?

Fashion, is it need or necessity? Many would say it’s a bit of both. And, the degree to which we use clothes for coverage versus artistic statement is entirely individual. Some are slaves to trends, others are tied to tried and true classics. What’s it mean to you? You decide.

Farah Angsana Show

Fashion, it’s hard to resist. The proliferation of labels, designers as celebrities, Project Runway and reality shows that create design stars has given us all a vocabulary for describing our clothing pedigree. What we wear now has a story of its own, taking the old adage a step further, clothes don’t just make the man, but tell you a lot about the man, as well.

Since couture is out of reach to most, –save the fraction of a percent of the populace concentrated in just a few cosmopolitan hubs– the rest of us, with an eye for style, are given to the gospel of “brand names for less” or achieving a high-end look for bargain basement prices.

Truthfully, I am mostly in the second camp. I’ve never spent an entire month’s rent for my NYC apartment for shoes off the floating shelves at Prada, but I will unabashedly devour high end sample sale finds and live for those 2 times a year when Barney’s fills racks in the auditorium of a Chelsea gymnasium with it’s designer frocks and divine european fabrications.

Despite the fact that I’m a hard news girl, I have always looked at clothes, and fashion, as a wearable art of sorts. As far back as I can remember, going through my mom’s Vogue magazines (and Vogue Pattern’s from which she made many of her pieces when I was little, and she had the time to sew) was a pastime I’d indulge on the floor of our home office. It was then I first marveled at the real life Barbies between the pages. Beverly Johnson was a household favorite, the first black model to make the cover of a major fashion magazine –she is still awe inspiringly beautiful and can make clothing come to life when she wears them.

But, I didn’t stop there. I spent unscheduled hours going through any number of the closets in the house occupied by her clothes (and lest I exclude the shoes) of all kinds, for every occasion: suits, dresses, capes and confections of exotic colors for weddings, baptisms or cocktail parties. Her shoe collections I’d bet money rivals Imelda Marcos’s notorious accumulation.

So detailed and meticulous was her work, even now when I scavenge through her closets, I’m hard-pressed to say which of her pieces are high-end labels (like Escada and Karl Lagerfeld) or a piece she fashioned with her hands and her Singer.

Now, I’m by no means blaming my mother for my love of labels (and the workmanship they represent). But, finely crafted garments that can inspire conversation and make a statement well before you open your mouth to speak, still has the power to test my confidence and reaffirm my esthetic sensibilities.

So, for the first of two times this year, I will pay homage to the designers and consortium of fashion insiders who will set the trends that will speak to us from the pages of magazine editorials, the racks of department stores and the windows at Saks –and will say as much about the clothes as they do about us.

Here’s to the Fall collections we’ll see at Fashion Week.