The Emperor's New Clothes. Seriously.

In N.Y., a Sublime Disregard For Pointing Out the Ridiculous

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Get Ready for Some Compost
Designers are unveiling their Fall 2007 collections during Fashion Week in New York. Along with some accessible, artful moments, there were others that validate the industry's disturbing disengagement from the society it serves.

NEW YORK, Feb. 5 -- Designers here are unveiling their fall 2007 collections and already there have been moments that validate the most outlandish portrayals of the fashion industry in popular culture. There has been harmless silliness as well as evidence of the industry's unnerving disengagement from the society it serves. All of it falls under the heading of creative license.

Saturday afternoon, designer Alexandre Herchcovitch sent a group of dresses and tops down his runway at Bryant Park that looked like they had been constructed from black plastic garbage bags. No one laughed. No one's mouth curled into a sneer of dismissal. Instead, the crowd remained respectfully silent. If a designer would like to publicly ponder the notion of "woman as compost," the industry will give him his space. Fashion is fueled by creative expression, so goes the established thinking. To stifle that freedom is to hinder the industry's growth.

No one's health is likely to be damaged by an ugly dress. But the disappointing panel discussion, hosted by the Council of Fashion Designers of America Monday morning, on eating disorders among models and the pressures on them to maintain a reed-thin figure, was not so benign. The smartest voice in the room belonged to the model Natalia Vodianova, best known for her work with Calvin Klein, who was seated in the audience. She talked plainly about her dysfunctional relationship with food, her unhealthy weight loss and the negative feedback from designers when she regained some of that weight.

The four panelists seemed intent on thanking the CFDA for the opportunity to participate in the event and offering reassurance that they were not out to inhibit the designers' creative freedom. No one addressed the responsibilities that come with such boundless artistic expression. No one focused on the core issue of why designers even want to use models who are so thin that their appearance raises fears about ill-health. The presentation hit rock bottom when the physical fitness trainer and panelist David Kirsch offered: "I'd rather see a healthy size 4 than an unhealthy size 0."

Fashion is a business that is willing to put up with a lot. Too much, maybe. No idea is dismissed as being too ludicrous.

On the BCBG Max Azria runway Friday, a model walked out wearing a quilted jacket that folded open in front like the pages of a book. The jacket didn't have lapels as much as it had wings. It was knee-slappingly ridiculous, but the audience watched it pass with the dispassion of the comatose. Azria followed up with jumpsuits that opened across the tush like a pair of chaps. The average person would have reared back in hysteria. The fashion crowd didn't blink.

The industry has worked so hard to be an open and nurturing ground for the eccentrics and the oddballs that it has grown numb. It's proud of the fact that it is never shocked. The goofy and the sublime are greeted with equal good manners. What fashion needs is a lesson in how to boo.

A little of that know-how would have been helpful at the Jackie Rogers show. Rogers once walked the runway for Coco Chanel. Today, she is a voluptuous woman with a brown pixie, but with the height and carriage of a model. She is known for cocktail dresses and evening gowns worn by women who have enough money and vanity to allow them to enter their golden years with few of their original parts.

Rogers showed her collection at Scores West, which is a "gentleman's club." It is hard to resist a womenswear show set in a strip joint, especially one that was recently raided on prostitution charges. The models -- dressed in patent-leather-trimmed dresses, look-at-me fitted suits and riotously colored devore velvet blouses -- strutted through the crowd and posed on a wooden stage decorated with red hearts.

A brass pole was positioned prominently on one side of the room. Would one of the models suddenly fling her leg around it and twirl? And here's a more important question: Would the show be better or worse without the clothes?

When the show ended, Rogers took her bows in a black pantsuit and white shirt with a large, dramatic collar. Surrounded by her models -- all fully clothed -- she looked like a madam overseeing the girls at her bordello.

This city is filled with designers trying to find the sweet spot between clothes that are so boring one can hardly work up the energy to disparage them and clothes that are so ridiculous that one is left trying to figure out where to begin the criticism. Would it be too cruel to find fault with a designer's basic concept? Erin Fetherston, one of the recipients of an Ecco Domani grant, showed her collection Sunday. The cash awards from the wine company are intended to help young designers mount a runway show. Fetherston has a light hand and a passion for feminine, girlish clothes. She is a tall, lanky platinum blonde from San Francisco on whom skirts as short and sweet as a tutu have a frothy charm. But Fetherston has few doppelgangers in this world. Most women -- even those who are just entering their 20s -- would look like they were wearing their Barbie's clothes.