ModeNY.com

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Round Up The Unusual Suspects
February 10, 2010

Yes, it's that time of year again -- Fashion Week. Now, many of you might assume this annual event would be a celebration for someone like me, a sort of Christmas-come-early, where elves are replaced by tailors, runways become our Christmas trees, and Santa Claus appears in the form of Karl Lagerfeld (not that I'm implying Karl is fat -- we all know he's a perfect physical specimen). And yet, this assumption could not be more incorrect.

Behind the scenes, Fashion Week is blood, sweat and tears -- and that's just for the people who are not me. Thankfully, they mop all of that up before I come around, or I slap them with a lawsuit (and, if I'm in an especially foul mood, simply slap them). For me, however, Fashion Week is a string of never-ending and compounding headaches, and all of it stems from the fact that Mode Magazine, under my guidance, has always been on the cutting edge of the sartorial spectrum.

Much of this is due in no small part to our Fashion Week show, devoted to "The Ten Designers to Watch." I've been responsible for making many careers with this show. In fact, I've made so many it would be easy to hit autopilot and bestow a sub-par talent with the "Designer to Watch" label just to see the fashion world misguidedly exult over a glorified tailor whose work I secretly believe to be merely adequate.

You can rest assured, however, this will never happen. Mode Magazine and the brand name of "Designer to Watch" mean too much to me to let them ever slip. This means I must scour the world every year to make sure the ones we select not only meet the standards we set, but shatter them. It's hard work, make no mistake.

And though it gets harder with each show, I take stock in knowing the next great visionary can come from anywhere. They may have gone to Pratt, or just taken an extension program at FIT -- they may even be a hopeless dreamer with no formal training and only an addiction to sewing and Project Runway. It doesn't matter, so long as they adhere to my only rule -- destroy the mold. I read the terrain of all that is current fashion and all the tradition that has come before, and I choose only that which breaks from it.

If you want to be one of the people I pluck from obscurity and become an icon of fashion, don't follow the current trends and don't ape today's leading artists, the Fords, the Hilfigers, the Wangs. Those designers are original and have fought for their own unique voices. No, if your work is but an echo of the usual suspects, I want no part of it. I want only the bold, the daring, the innovative. In short, I want only to round up the unusual suspects. And that is exactly what I will bring you in Fashion Week 2010.

- Wilhelmina Slater