FASHION WEEK SHOULD GET A TENT IN ALASKA

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JAMES EDSTROM'S
VIEW ON
MERCEDES BENZ FASHION WEEK 2010
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James Edstrom

We have been very in-decisive about Mercedes Benz fashion week this year in Bryant Park. We have been going through the photos from some of the photographers who have covered this famous event, and we are not impressed at all. In fact, we do not see much talent there this year at all. So we have decided to do very little on this event for several reasons. First of all, I understand that Fashion Week is moving to Lincoln Center soon, but for years Bryant Park has been taken up by huge tents, gigantic generator trucks, television trucks along with rude police who won't let us enjoy our park. It is just not right for public property to be used this way. To try to walk from 6th avenue to 5th avenue is a disgrace. They have most of the park closed off, wires running from trucks to tents all over the streets, and rude police telling us we can not walk here and can not walk there. Yet the rich and famous who fly in for this event get the royal treatment in our park, while we are threatened with arrest. Many years ago I covered this event and way back then I just did not get it. Hundreds of photographers fighting for a shot. The ones that get access are thrown in like sardines. Till this day, I can not understand why anyone would want to cover this event. So many photographers are getting the same shots, so it is almost impossible to even make any money off the photos. And for several years now, they are charging the photographers to cover Fashion Week. Can you believe it? We have to pay to cover your event to give you publicity. We are supposed to write and photograph your up and coming fashion stars and we have to pay for the privilege? We have to pay you to make your clients famous? This in itself is a outrage. I just checked the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week media website. If you register before Jan 15th, the fee is 65 bucks. If you register after Jan 15th the fee raises to 90 bucks. One photographer told me the other night there was even a higher fee is you just show up the day of the event. Amazing.... With the economy in the gutter, celebrity photography is just not what it used to be, there is not anymore money in the game. I really do not understand why any photographer would pay to cover a event, no matter what it is. We give Fashion Week worldwide media exposure. So for these reasons and several others, we are only going to cover very little of Fashion Week, if any, for several of our good publicist friends that have a client with at least a little talent. What we have seen so far just does not impress us here at Times Square Gossip. I think it's time for the bigwigs at IMG, like Fern Mallis, who by the way we have met many times and we adore her, rethink and re-create Fashion Week to bring back the glamor and excitement it used to have. And stop charging the press, it just is not right. Paying for the honor of giving you publicity is just not our thing. Times Square Gossip is syndicated on some of the biggest sites in the world, and we are not going to pay for the privilege of covering a event in our own park. Also, I guess this is why the Bryant Park Conservators rent out the park to so many events, so they can keep their big fat salaries coming in. Shame on all of you!
Photo By: Ann Watt/Society-Photos