At New York fashion week, the accessory to be seen with was not the new limited edition Louis Vuitton handbag, or even the latest must-have miniature lapdog. It was a cheap blue or red plastic badge of allegiance -- not to the Manhattan fashion power players of Donna Karan, Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren, but to US President George W. Bush or Senator John Kerry.
Mary Alice Stephenson, stylist to the actor Liv Tyler and a well-known front-row face, last week told the cult Manhattan-based fashion newspaper The Daily that top of her list of what not to wear was "a Bush/Cheney pin."
Coming hot on the heels of the Republican convention in New York, and with the election less than two months away, the buzz at New York fashion week was as much about politics as about frocks.
Among the week's most coveted invitations was a reception last Sunday night hosted by designers Cynthia Rowley and Kenneth Cole, along with Hillary Rodham Clinton, in honor of John Kerry and John Edwards. And the front-row guests expected to produce the biggest paparazzi frenzy are not the actor Kate Hudson, or even Paris Hilton, who is in town to promote her book, Confessions of a Heiress, but the first daughters, Barbara and Jenna Bush.
In February, Barbara caused a sensation by gracing, with her model cousin Lauren, the front row of young designer Zac Posen's show. Currently on a charm offensive, the Bush girls may well take advantage of the publicity surrounding fashion week again.
Fashion has come to play a key role in grooming candidates' wives and, increasingly, daughters for the campaign trail: the latest issue of American Vogue features an interview and glamorous photoshoot with John Kerry's daughters, mirroring a similar stunt with the Bush girls earlier in the summer.
Meanwhile, in another attempt to introduce to fashion week debate that transcends the issue of Jimmy Choo versus Manolo Blahnik, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which in recent years has repeatedly sabotaged the catwalk shows of top designers to protest against their use of fur, has this season staged a fashion week seminar for students at Parsons School of Design to inform young designers, who are often offered sponsorship by fur companies in return for featuring their products, about the fur trade.
The aim, says PETA vice-president Dan Mathews, is to allow students "to make informed choices about using animal skins rather than just letting them be seduced by fur industry handouts."
The politicized atmosphere is heightened by the fact that fashion shows will be staged today, the first to be held on Sept. 11 since the terrorist attacks. For the first two anniversaries of the attacks, organizers avoided the date. But today there is a full schedule of nine shows.
"It is a day of business," says Fern Mallis, executive director of New York fashion week coordinators 7th on Sixth, of the decision to stage shows. "The city is not shut down. There are very significant major events happening in New York -- the women's final of the US Open, for instance. At 8.45am and 9.03am, the times when the planes hit, we will have moments of silence. After that it's up to everyone to mark the day in whatever way feels appropriate to them."
Not surprisingly, however, none of the major designers have chosen to show today.
"I wouldn't say there was a rush to fill those slots", admits Mallis.
But Kelly Cutrone, owner and founder of the fashion PR company People's Republic, has chosen slots today for several of the designers she represents, including American designer Jeremy Scott and Turkish newcomer Atil Kutoglu. For Cutrone, there is a strong political dimension to this decision.
"Personally, I'm very sceptical about how the Bush administration has handled the legacy of Sept. 11. I don't at all support their tactics designed to make everyone feel so scared. I'm not going to buy into that fear," she says.
But she admits the decision to go ahead with shows was not an easy one: "Of course, it's a day when people in New York are very sensitive."
"And of course we want to respect those people who suffered on a very personal level. But while fashion may not be the deepest industry in the world, in our own little fashion way we felt it would be good to do something positive," she says.
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