The Fashions of September Written by Wendy R. Williams Photographed by the New York Cool Photographers (Opposite Photo DDCLABS - Photo Credit Evan Sung)

September in New York is all fashion all the time. Olympus Fashion Week arises from the ground at Bryant Park (September 8 – 15th) and the city will be awash with designers and gorgeous six-foot-tall- sixteen-year-old models will stalk the streets. And we will be treated to the spectacle of pass-less wanabees, harnessing every guile known to mankind to get past the guards and get into the tents. For no matter how stunning the fashions on the runways, everyone knows that the best show takes place in the tents and at the parties where you see how the actual players style themselves.

Oakley - Photo Credit Evan Sung	Kai Milla - Photo Credit Krisztina Fazekas

And all of this is for fashion, a sometimes derided art form (as in “Oh, I’m too busy to pay attention to what I wear.”), but which in this writer’s opinion is as deserving of praise as art, literature or architecture. Because through our use of fashion we tell the world who we are; by what we choose or do not choose to put on our body, we become walking billboards for ourselves.

We use fashion to tell people which “tribe” we belong to, whether we are Wall Street investment bankers, fashion designers or skate board kids. No one can ride the subways of New York City without seeing the stark fashion differences between the riders on the L Train to Brooklyn and the riders on the E Train to Queens. And if you think the L riders just basically put on what just happened to be lying on the floor next to the bed, stop and wonder about how that tacky vintage fifties dress just happened to be lying on the floor of a twenty-three year old graphic artist in the first place? Another hint: the L riders all wear cut and torn rock t-shirts, but none of them are from the Hard Rock Café and I bet the local Good Will is full of Hard Rock t-shirts. And if you want to see a different kind of t-shirt (a spaghetti-strapped boob-displaying tank top with crystal lettering – can you spell bebe?), just get on the E to Queens. And think about how easy it is to spot the tourists in Times Square, even the Dallas and Atlanta women who went to Neiman Marcus to buy something black so they would “fit in” when they were in Manhattan (their purses are just a little too cute and their hair a little too combed) . Dressing to fit in with a tribe requires extensive study of the subtleties of style: $300 sunglasses in the East Fifties; Chanel flats on Madison in the Eighties; spiked hair in the East Village – these are simply the first clues.

Oakley - Photo Credit Evan Sung	Oakley - Photo Credit Evan Sung

Oakley - Photo Credit Evan Sung	DDCLABS - Photo Credit Evan Sung

And this brings me back to Olympus Fashion Week – the week when all the top designers show us what they think we will be wearing in the spring of 2007. Recognizing that Fashion Week will always be at least six months ahead of us both in style and chronology, we are running some of our favorite photos from February 2006 Olympus Fashion Week (www.newyorkcool.com/archives/2006/February/fashion.html) with this article. We also covered and will feature designers who design incredible ball gowns (Zang Toi and Venexiana come to mind). But since everywhere the New York Cool writers and photographer go someone is sure to be wearing jeans, the photos in this article are either street wear or quasi street wear – the things we wear and the fashions of the tribes we aspire to join.

Keenan Dufty - Photo Credit Melinda Maclean	Nicole Romano- Photo Credit Noelle Ashley

New York Cool will be publishing our coverage of Olympus Fashion Week throughout the month of September, so check back often for runway coverage, interviews with the designers and party stories. See you in the tents!

P. S. If you are still unconvinced that fashion matters or has any influence on your life, please look at your running shoes. If there is some lime green trim, you need to thank the late great fashion tastemaker Stephen Sprouse.

Cover Photo Credit: L-R: DDCLABS by Evan Sung; Oakley by Evan Sung; DDCLABS by Evan Sung; and Kai Milla by Krisztina Fazekas.