NEW YORK FASHION WEEK begins its run at Lincoln Center on Thursday after 17 years in Bryant Park — so expect to see disoriented fashion editors in treacherous shoes teetering about the Upper West Side.
The biggest change from past years is obvious: more elbow room. The space at Lincoln Center is about 30 percent larger than that of Bryant Park, where traversing the crammed lobby was like playing a real-life game of Frogger: You strived to nimbly get where you were going without being thwacked.
“It was a bottleneck to get in and out of venues,” said Alison Levy, a spokeswoman for IMG Fashion, which produces Fashion Week. “And now it’s tremendous.”
Besides expanding the site, IMG has tried to upgrade the Fashion Week experience by overhauling the lobby layout, the check-in process, the runway sites, the signage, even the ease with which attendees can get cabs.
Among the first things this year’s guests will encounter is a 50-foot-high facade that says “Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week” and is covered with painted material meant to resemble the marble of the Metropolitan Opera House.
Staircases lead to a series of interconnected tents that visitors enter through a lobby with glass walls that look out onto courtyards. Here, attendees can check in at self-service kiosks and, if need be, visit the information desk. At Bryant Park guests were less likely to get information at this desk than to get hammered by people vying for free copies of fashion publications. (IMG said it is trying to eliminate the problem this year by installing a separate media wall for freebies.) Beyond the lobby is Lobby 2, a waiting area with lounges that may help stem overcrowding in the entryway.
Most of the spring 2011 collections will be shown in the Theater, the Stage or the Studio. A raw space called the Box will be used for multimedia presentations, cocktail parties and other sartorial-related displays. Additionally, events will take place in two courtyards, like an invitation-only dinner with Zac Posen and the chef Rocco DiSpirito.
The Stage and the Theater contain the two longest runways, at 90 feet and 88 feet, respectively. Instead of chairs, the Stage has benches like those used one season by Pucci in Milan (where well-heeled editors unabashedly pilfered pillows off the benches). The Stage will include collections by Christian Siriano (of “Project Runway” fame), Charlotte Ronson, Derek Lam, Max Azria and Narciso Rodriguez.
At the Theater, editors and buyers will see collections from Michael Kors, Anna Sui, Tommy Hilfiger and Betsey Johnson, among others. The Studio will present shows by designers including Tracy Reese, Tory Burch and Elie Tahari. The Box will be used by the likes of Tadashi Shoji, Sophie Theallet, Mackage and Rebecca Minkoff.
More than 90 designers will present their spring and summer collections in these spaces through Sept 16. A few will unveil their designs in other spots around Lincoln Center, like the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Jill Stuart, for one, will be at the David H. Koch Theater. Other designers, like Marc Jacobs, will not show at Lincoln Center, but at other locations around town.
Whether coming or going to Lincoln Center, it will likely be easier to do so in style. Hailing a cab at Bryant Park — a necessity for many attendees given the height of their stilettos — was an exercise in natural selection. “Everyone fended for themselves,” Ms. Levy said.
This time, there will be a taxi stand on Columbus Avenue between 62nd and 63rd Streets. And Ms. Levy said officials with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission would send out what is essentially a fashion alert, informing drivers of show hours to help ensure a stream of taxis.
Once inside Lincoln Center, guests can print their own seating assignments at kiosks, then have bar codes on their invitations scanned as they enter each show.
This may also make it that much more challenging for the uninvited to crash.
As Ms. Levy noted, “It works really well for the airports.”
