Five Moments in Bryant Park ...

We said goodbye to Bryant Park Thursday night, as New York Fashion Week decamps and heads to Lincoln Center in September. I’ve worked those tents since they first went up in 1993, but still I was surprised by how emotional Thursday night was; “the end of an era” can seem like such a cliché, but for those of us who honed our craft between those white canvas walls, the farewell elicited many memories. Here are my top five:

5. I’ll start with the silliest memory: I still recall what I wore the first time I walked into the Bryant Park tents—unfortunately, I cannot use the word chic. It was a blue and black brocade vest with nickel-sized silver buttons that I, gulp, had purposely sewn onto the vest, having chosen them as more fitting replacements for less-blingy buttons. My only excuse? It was 1993 and I was very young. Maybe someday—perhaps when she’s all of 15—Tavi will look back and cringe at what she wore to some shows.

4. The supermodel moment: In the early days of Bryant Park, I don’t think we comprehended how amazing it was to attend shows by Todd Oldham or Isaac Mizrahi and witness Cindy, Christy, Linda, Naomi, Shalom, et al saunter down the same runway. Thankfully, filmmaker Douglas Keeve documented this blazing-hot cadre of girls in 1995's Unzipped, which chronicles one season in the life of Mizrahi, and quite stands up over time if you haven’t caught it recently. The Mizrahi show that climaxes Unzipped also stands out as a favorite memory: The designer used a white scrim as the runway backdrop, and depending on where the lighting fell, it either appeared to be simply a white backdrop or, when lit from behind, was more transparent so you could view the backstage proceedings. Before the online universe changed everything about fashion (not to mention our daily lives), it was Unzipped and Mizrahi's now-famous "Nanook of the North" show that truly threw open the doors of life off (or behind) a New York runway. Here’s a link to buying the DVD on Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/buTL1t

3. Thank you, Mr. Blass: For the presentation of one of the last Bill Blass collections for which the venerable designer was still at the helm—he retired in 1999 and passed away from cancer in 2002—his PR director, in gratitude for a story I recently had written, bestowed me with a choice seat: second row, next to John Mellencamp. (Seems odd these days that anyone would seat a celeb in a second row, but the celeb frenzy that exists now really didn’t then because, again, it was more about the girls on the runway.) I also sketched then, as the immediacy of digital film or Style.com didn’t exist, and your sketchbook was your best friend for remembering trends and highlights. Anyway, the first models walked out, I started sketching, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mellencamp observing my work. Well, of course, my sketches got better, more elaborate, executed with decidedly more flourish. He said, “You’re really good at that,” and I blushed and stammered. Mellencamp was there because his wife, the stunning Elaine Irwin, was walking Blass’s runway, and I complimented her, genuinely, by noting she had the best walk on the runway. She really did, as the supes in those days undulated seductively down a runway; it wasn’t the giraffe stomp so typical now. Mellencamp smiled proudly at the compliment. They’re still married (they're shown above in 2008), and I like to think I had a little something to do with that.

2. How we’ll miss you, Mr. McQueen: We were exiting BCBG, the second show of Bryant Park’s first day this season, when we learned that Lee Alexander McQueen had taken his own life in his London home. Twitter and email spread the news through the tents, and one quite literally felt the mood change as editors dashed back to their offices for news and to rip pages apart to make room for tributes. And so on that first morning, the air seemed to be sucked out of the tents as though by a vacuum. More than anything, the death of this brilliant, romantic, troubled man points out a truism about fashion rarely discussed: the all-too-precarious balance of working in such a hard, brutal business, and yet it’s populated so greatly by those who are often quite fragile. The most poignant moment of Bryant Park this season took place at Naomi Campbell’s Friday-night Fashion For Relief show when, in the midst of raising funds and awareness for a country so battered by tragedy, a moment was taken to honor McQueen, with a finale of several iconic models walking the runway in his designs.

1. Finally, of course, the day the world changed: September 11, 2001, was a Tuesday, the fifth day of the Spring 2002 collections, and at 9 a.m. Liz Lange was presenting the Bryant Park debut of her maternity line. It was a bright, beautiful September morning—and then it wasn’t. Confusion initially reigned over what actually had occurred downtown, but by the time Lange’s show had concluded, the decision already had been made to cancel the rest of Fashion Week. The tents were stripped of what immediately seemed like frivolous décor—weren’t they pink that year?—and they were offered up as a site for emergency services. I thought of this recently after Haiti’s tragedy and, not unlike Hollywood celebs and their instant telethon, how the fashion industry quickly banded together both to present Fashion For Relief and to create the To Haiti With Love T-shirt (http://bit.ly/cY6awL). In those initial days after 9/11, I spent a lot of time wondering whether I had the most frivolous job in the world, especially after the call went out for volunteers: doctors, nurses, welders. And so we dived into planning fundraisers for the families of 9/11 victims, not only to make a tangible contribution in the aftermath of so much pain, but also to feel that sense of contribution from an industry that, yes, was too often dismissed as one rooted in frivolity. Season after season in the tents, we hope to witness something beautiful, something that moves us. Bryant Park has created countless memories in 17 years, but none more beautiful than what can be created when passion and energy arise out of tragedy.