FASHION SHOW at Bryant Park

SMILE! And she did -avec plaisir...

The invitation-only-tents went up as soon as the freebie-skating-rink was disassembled -and all this week, the center of NYC, Bryant Park, would concern itself with introducing the FALL fashions of 2006 (even though it was still early February). Since my Thursdays are involved with going through this area, I decided to do my paparazzo thing and click some pix of whomever I deemed to be "interesting".


Although my mother was a dressmaker / designer, I never got too involved, but tagged along with her as a kid and got to know a little about the glitzy industry. Descriptions of "EMPIRE" and "A-LINE" dresses with "satin and organza" still echo colorfully through my gray matter. Unfortunately, I'm quite ignorant about constructing clothes or recognizing faces of the fashion-world's who's who -other than the big names of Lagerfeld, Klein, Wang and Mizrahi. On numerous occasions I've walked across Fashion Avenue's embedded brass discs with commemorative engravings to the likes of the classic greats -and so I know their names (Rudi Gernreich, Coco Chanel, Donna Karan, Betsey Johnson, et al) but could never recognize them by face. Nonetheless, whenever I see a fashion show, I think of my mother and it brings pleasant childhood memories of her entourage of customers being fitted for evening gowns in their underwear (and sometimes without their underwear)!


I've only done modeling once... so far. It was for a NYU Tisch Photography theme: JADED BUSINESSMAN. The photog's idea had something to do with a young minotaur being very active in a sleezy bar, while I sat "bored and barely involved" in the center with a bearded aquaintance of mine as we nursed our drinks. It was interesting to see the photog-crew "jell the lights" with all sorts of magenta-type colors. I also got some beautiful photo copies out of it... and an entry into my resume.

And back in 1990, while tracking through the booksigning routes of celebs, Annie Leibovitz was promoting her 1970-1990 collection -which I promptly bought (love her stuff). And while standing on line for her to autograph it, I asked her to snap a picture of me with my handy-dandy-off-the-shelf-instamatic-camera. And SHE DID! She was a really good sport about it, saying, "Yeah -sure...gimme that camera... where's the shutter release...?!". I loved it. A real collector's item.

Not exactly runway work...