55 Secret Street

My Little Brown Eye: NY Fashion Week Spring 2008 - Final Chapter

There was no need for a full-fledged subway beauty routine on Sunday, just a quick polish change (love that Jackie Oh My!) and a cab to the SoHo Grande hotel to watch the solid, feminine collection of H. Fredriksson (see below).  I especially love her dresses and skirts.  Perfect for church and brunch and dinner and drinks.  Lesley and I quickly befriended Waylon of the Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker Street (Waylon and I bonded over designer Budweiser before the show. Yes, designer Budweiser).

Back at the tents, we were just in time for "standing" at the Reem Acra show.  You literally get a ticket for standing room behind the chairs (an index card marked with a black marker - ha!) but it's really not bad and you don't have to crane your neck to see the show.     

I think Lesley's succinct summary gives you a great idea on the collection and Carol at Second City Style also does a great job.

After Reem Acra, we parked ourselves in the Moet champagne lounge with Lauren, Rachel, Kristen, Julia and her friend Daphne of Warm Spirit to watch the Diane Von Furstenberg show on the monitors.   From my perch, I watched Andre Leon Talley bring Terry McMillan into the show and Alek Wek, Chanel Iman and Liya Kebede were among the models that walked the runway.

Although we were having a ball in the lounge, I did manage to put my champagne glass down long enough to slip over to the DHL booth to pick up a bag of popcorn from Dylan's Candy Bar (who said there's no food at Fashion Week!) and to sign up to possibly win one of Zac Posen’s new limited edition "Tote for Teachers".  Tina from Bag Snob approves and I also saw several women during the course of the week wearing the bag.  DHL is donating 100% of the proceeds of  this all natural Italian leather bag to Teacher's Count. 

My Fashion Week ended with a reception and light supper to celebrate a collaboration between Cynthia Rowley and eBay at the Bryant Park Hotel.  Constance White, ebay's Style Director was the host and you're not going to believe the elegant, funky one-of-a-kind jewelry Cynthia designed for her runway show.  The jewelry will be available starting November 15th at 7thonSale.eBay.com and will raise money for various HIV and AIDS organizations.

Overall, I had a great time but I did miss a few friends who were there like Katherine aka The Budget Fashionista, who spotted a luminous Mary J. Blige at the J. Mendel show and Chanel of Hip Candy, who has a fabulous giveaway (which ends on September 19th!) where you can win the gift bag from the Tracy Reese show!   Also, don't miss Tia's beauty wrap up of the shows which includes a quick interview with model Selita Ebanks.  I saw Selita - sans Nick Cannon - across the way at the Rosa Cha show a few seats down from a shorn Mena Suvari.

My Little Brown Eye: NY Fashion Week Spring 2008 - Chapter 1

 

I'm back!

Sorry again for the M.I.A. but, my computer situation aside, this was my first Fashion Week (I'm a beauty girl by nature) so I've been on the run since last Wednesday.

After engaging in an extended session of The Subway Beauty Routine (details to come!), I reached the tents at Bryant Park.  Lesley's brand new husband Joe (They got married last Tuesday! In Vermont!) and my new favorite Venezualan, Jonathan from FashMatch, whisked me in the tents and we made our way into the Rosa Cha show where Lesley was valiantly fighting off fashionistas to save our seats.

Rosa Cha is by Amir Slama and it is one of my favorite swimwear lines - definitely not sit at the beach and read a book swimwear.  Here are some of my favorite looks from the show and also, check out Lesley's coverage on Fashion Tribes.

After Rosa Cha, I got a great surprise - I met nearly all of my beauty blogger pals!  Lianne of The Makeup Girl, Julia of All About The Pretty, Erika of The Makeup Bag, Kristen of The Beauty Addict and Ellen of Lipstick, Powder 'n Paint.  I also had a chance to meet Elke Von Freudenberg, Shannon of A Girl's Gotta Spa, Rachel of Stylebites, Teri from Beautiful Makeup Search and Marina of Makeup Loves Me. 

They invited us to dinner later that evening and then Lesley and I caught an (air-conditioned!) M4 bus down Fifth Avenue to East 27th street to catch the THREEAsFOUR show (see below).  Actually, I caught the show, but Lesley had work to do.  She had hair and makeup interviews to do backstage with the film crew she was working with from Moli.com (Hi Candace and Carlos!) 

 

 

Next, we were back up at Bryant Park for The Academy of Art University show by several talented new designers who attend the school.  I watched backstage at THREEAsFOUR, but this time, Lesley put me to work.   There were several designers to interview in a short time, so we picked our favorites.  Lesley interviewed the team of James Yoest and Sharon Chia-yu Yeh about their parachute jackets, silk tops and pants made with organic and reused fabrics and natural dyes.  Tina from Bag Snob interviewed MinSun Lee about her Russian Matryoshka doll-inspired polka dot dresses and the helmets on the models that caught everyone's eye.  And I quizzed Kyung Min Kim about her textile work on the dresses and tops that were inspired by the fairytales of her childhood.   I wish I had pictures for you, but I could not find them online!  Not to worry though, I am certain that you will be hearing from many of these designers in the very near future.

 

A raucous Italian dinner followed at Arno Ristorante with our beauty pals and believe me when I tell you, a good time was had by all.   Lianne wrote about our dinner and her trip to New York for the shows, Julia has her coverage up and Teri from Beautiful Makeup Search gave us all a nice shout out with a great (illustrated!) picture.

    

I had fun at our beauty dinner, but I missed a really hot party! 

Lauren of Stereohyped celebrated the first anniversary of The Fashion Bomb blog at Katra and her sister Tia helped her celebrate and even gave Lauren some serious false eyelashes for the occasion.