Hello emerald city inhabitants,

It has arrived -- Mercedes Benz Fashion Week has officially started in New York City. But instead of a busy night of shows, the gods at Vogue decided to declare tonight as "Fashion's Night Out".

The main idea was to keep all stores, all over the globe, open late for shoppers to start pushing through the recession. "Shop for good!" was the campaign's slogan annoyingly recited by all participants. I do love fashion, but let's face it -- getting a new pair of jeans isn't going to cure cancer or save polar bears.

Polar bears or not, it was still an interesting night. I can't name a single brand or retailer that didn't participate and have some sort of party/gimmicky event going on. DKNY was handing out bottles of champagne like nobody's business, there was a designer on every floor of Barney's ready to sign anything short of a gum wrapper, and Cold Cave played to a schweaty crowd at the Rogan store. However, the most interesting part to me was the people attending these various events.

After last night (blog post to come, I promise!) and all of my previous experience with fashion related events, I'm shocked to say people were ... nice? At Calvin Klein, a model giggled about her cape and joked about how she looked like "Darth Villain" (ah, foreigners) and people on the streets were less on the pushy side and more on the "I like your glasses!" and of course the "Where did you get that drink?" leaving me confused and feeling like I left New York without realizing it.

I guess Fashion's Night Out did perform some good after all. If not a redirected cash flow, it injected some excitement into our polluted metropolitan air -- not a bad start to what's ahead!

Cheers,

Van