BY ELIZABETH FURINO ’16
Contributing Writer

From Sept. 6-13, the Lincoln Center in New York hosted Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, filling tents with fabulous clothes and people alike. The week-long clothing celebration outlined what designers have deemed the upcoming trends for Spring 2013. This Fashion Week tried to prove itself as notable from those in the past because it offered exciting, new, and innovative technological effects. The technology interest continued to Twitter, where Fashion Week records were set and groundbreaking modeling contracts were discussed.

Although the styles suggested don’t really take effect until March, it is still a responsibility of famous designers to report to the fashionable public what to wear. Many of the popular trends revolved around showing skin, fitting for warmer temperatures. These styles included sheer garments, lace, crop tops, and the Angelina-Jolie-length slit. Sequined mini-dresses are also in, as well as leather shorts. With regards to color, black and white will be popular and color blocking will continue to dominate the racks. Finally, stripes and flower patterns perfect for Spring will bloom on various garments.

Thankfully, Fashion Week did provide other noteworthy ideas. Veteran designer Diane von Furstenberg brought accessories to a whole new level in her fashion show. Instead of having her models sport sunglasses in her runway show, which is a common accessory for Spring shows, DVF had many of her models wear Google glasses.

While these search engine-generated specs include many neat features, the designer was most interested in their built-in camera. Models, DVF herself, and others backstage wore the glasses before, during, and after the show.

Later, the footage was put into a video that showed what it’s like behind the scenes. Additionally, it allows viewers to vicariously experience the walk from backstage, onto the catwalk, and then back again, something not even Project Runway demystifies. Although the glasses were definitely interesting and innovative, the styling choices distracted from the clothing, which happened to be mod-inspired and colorful.

During the eight days, some 670,000 tweets were made with regard to New York Fashion Week, with 17,000 coming from Victoria Beckham alone. Aside from the mentions, Posh also secured over 50,000 new followers, while popular designer Rebecca Minkoff gained 30,000. The twitter hashtag #nyfw harbored twice the amount of tweets as last year’s September shows. This doubling could be in response to increased twitter use or, more interestingly, an augmented public interest in fashion and American designers in general.

While new trends, trending, and eyewear are nice and all, the real story to come out of the Week had to deal with a ground-breaking modeling contract. Robyn Lawless, a size 12 Aussi model, signed with Ralph Lauren for an upcoming campaign.

Lawless is the first plus-sized model to ever be the lead model for a campaign with the famed American designer. While Lawless didn’t walk in this Fashion Week, the deal was closed during it.

By hiring Lawless, Lauren opened many doors for her and other plus-sized models. The possibility of fuller-figured models walking in official Fashion Week shows down the line is more likely than ever before because of the influence Lauren has in the industry.

Despite the signing of Lawless and a Posh-heavy twitter spike, clothing critics and fashion fans agree: this Fashion Week was rather lackluster — concerned more with technology and what compliments fashion than the art itself.

Questions? Email Elizabeth at efurino@fandm.edu.

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By TCR