Though Lincoln Center is the top spot to have your picture snapped during the fashion week chaos, it is not necessarily the best place if you're looking to bump into your favorite designer.
Lincoln Center is Fashion Week's new NYC home after relocating from Bryant Park. Though inarguably the top spot to have your picture snapped during the fashion week chaos, it's not necessarily the best place if you're looking to bump into your favorite designer: Many huge industry talents have opted out of the tents this season in favor of unusual venues throughout the city, and we're not just talking about Milk Studios.
Among those confirmed not to be showing at Lincoln Center are hotly-anticipated presentations like Alexander Wang (showing at the massive Pier 94), Rag & Bone, Rachel Antonoff (staging at show at the LaGuardia High School gymnasium), Libertine, Jason Wu, Rachel Comey, Victoria Beckham, Karen Walker and, last but not least, Proenza Schouler, who will present in a massive old rail yard by Houston and the Hudson.
The appeal of showing off-site is really twofold: On the one hand, it's often less expensive, and on the other it actually allows designers to curate a better world in which to present their collections. The tents can be quite limiting in terms of transforming the space -- with so many shows happening back-to-back, there's little load-in time and even less ability to alter the basic set-up. For this reason, even big names that are attached the IMG/Mercedes-Benz line-up like Calvin Klein and Donna Karan have shown outside the tents for years.
What does this mean for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week? Likely that they'll have to sweeten the deal if they want to lure top talents under the tents (it costs $50,000 just to use their largest space), either by acting as middle man between designers and corporate co-sponsors that can help shoulder the cost of showing, or perhaps by offering exclusive services for hair/makeup and styling that could give big indie names an incentive to show there.
