New York Fashion Week: Wu offers ‘grown-up’ clothes; Rosie in red

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS is all over New York Fashion Week, from its runway fashions to celebrity-packed events. Here’s what some writers are seeing:

Everyone always asks Adam Selman about “that” dress, and no wonder: The designer’s totally sheer, crystal-encrusted gown for Rihanna at the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards last June made global headlines.

“It was a game-changer,” he said on Friday before his runway show in a Chelsea gallery. “It definitely put me on a worldwide scale. It’s February, and people are still talking about that dress. I knew it was going to make a big splash but I didn’t expect for people to still be talking about it now!” 

Why the huge reaction? “I think it was just shocking, and it was just interesting to see a woman feel so confident that she didn’t need to be all nipped and tucked,” Selman said. “She was just so natural, and there was no retouching — that was her.”

For his runway show this time, Selman, whose background is in costume design, said he was inspired by the “bad-girl” characters in the 1974 movie Female Trouble, starring Divine. His runway featured fencing, as in a schoolyard, and the ground was littered with crushed soda cans and wrinkled wrappers. The models hung onto the fences and chatted, or looked in compact mirrors to check their makeup.

As for the clothes, they were a colourful, playful mix of schoolgirl gingham and more body-hugging fabrics. Selman said he also wanted to infuse his fashions with an arts-and-crafts theme, so he covered many of his garments with cute little bows as appliques. Colours were evocative of a schoolyard, too: Bubblegum and bottle green were two of Selman’s favourites. Front-row guests included pop singer Kesha and Disney Channel star Zendaya.

Rosie in red 

Rosie O’Donnell opened with a wry quip: “I had a lot of stress today, I don’t know if you heard.”

Hours after ending her second stint as a host of ABC’s The View, O’Donnell was on a fashion runway — a strange place for her to be, she said — introducing the American Heart Association’s “Go Red for Women” Red Dress Collection, an annual fashion show featuring entertainment personalities modelling bright red designer dresses to promote awareness of heart disease.

O’Donnell donned a red jacket and black pants to open the show on Thursday night, but she wasn’t hazarding a walk down the runway (and back) teetering on stilettos. That job fell to some 20 women of all ages, culminating in a much-cheered appearance by actress Barbara Eden, the 83-year-old former star of the 1960s series I Dream of Jeannie, who even did her trademark fold-the-arms-and-blink move for the cameras.

Eden wore a lacy Carmen Marc Valvo gown. Others at the show, which was presented by Macy’s, included TV personality Star Jones in a B. Michael gown, who brought along her tiny white dog on a leash (the dog appeared to be a real pro, hardly flinching in the hot lights and loud music).

Some of the biggest cheers were awarded to Laverne Cox, a star of TV’s Orange is the New Black and the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy. Cox twirled at the top of the runway in her gauzy Donna Karan number.

The show ended with a song from the girl group Fifth Harmony — all clad in red, of course.

Clothes for the crazy weather at Jason Wu

The weather has been sobering indeed for the opening of Fashion Week — a deep chill settled in on Friday, with worse to come — and Jason Wu says he was thinking about such things when he designed his collection.

“What’s new here is that a lot of outerwear pieces are interchangeable,” he said Friday after his runway show in downtown Manhattan. A number dresses or coats, for example, were accompanied by removable fur pieces. “The fur can come off, so you can wear the wool coat by itself,” Wu said. “It’s the idea of addressing the weather changes, all the time. It’s simply realistic.”

Wu, who became famous by designing not one, but both of first lady Michelle Obama’s inaugural gowns, called his new collection “a grown-up collection for me,” with colours that were darker and more sultry. He favoured an olive green, an ash gray, and black — with a pop of bright red in the middle, “for sex appeal,” he said.

Wu was tight-lipped about whether he’s dressing any famous actresses for the Oscars on February 22; Last year, a pregnant Kerry Washington wore a gown of his in a plum-violet shade. “You never know,” he said. “It’s about the right girl and the right dress. I hate to name names.”

He did agree, though, to reveal the name of someone he aspires to dress one day: last year’s best actress winner. “I’d love to work with Cate Blanchett,” he said.