Fashion needs your help!  On the first night of New York Fashion Week, Fashion and Art come together for a night of glamour and cool shopping with the advent of “VOGUE FASHION’S NIGHT OUT” in New York City.  Coordinated by the U.S. and international editions of Vogue, the Big Apple joins its sister fashion capitals around the world— From London to Paris, from Moscow to Mumbai, from Beijing to Milan –in a global initiative to promote retail, restore consumer confidence, and celebrate fashion.

COSTUME NATIONAL is a proud participant of “Vogue Fashion’s Night Out.”  Come explore our exquisite new SoHo space and take in the exciting visual art of Shinique Smith, from the Yvon Lambert Gallery, who will intrigue shoppers with an art installation brought in exclusively for this very important shopping event. Costume National Creative Director, Ennio Capasa, has always supported contemporary creativity in all its expressions: from art, to cinema to design. In addition, the boutique, along with other participating retailers, will remain open late until 11 p.m., to help maximize shopping time and stimulate purchases.

In addition, shoppers can pick-up special T-shirts created by the CFDA at the Costume National boutique for this shopping event.  Your purchase of a “Fashion Night Out” tee will benefit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center.  For more information, visit www.fashionsnightout.com.

COSTUME NATIONAL & SHINIQUE SMITH FOR THE YVON LAMBERT GALLERY, in conjunction with American Vogue, NYC & Company, the City of New York, AMEX, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)

Thursday, September 10, 2009 6pm -11pm

Costume National Boutique Located at 160 Mercer Street, SoHo, New York

About Shinique Smith

Shinique Smith, represented by the Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris and New York,  is an American artist who brings the anonymous aspects of life to the forefront, examining her own footing within the world. Her latest work, “Ten Times Myself,” a series of paintings and sculptures inspired from song lyrics, is a self-imposed call to be bolder and to go from one to ten without remorse. Infusing an ardent style owed to Abstract Expressionism and Japanese Calligraphy, Smith’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally at venues including the National  Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the New Museum, New York; Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; PS 1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York; and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado.

When it rains, it pours is as the saying goes. At almost any point in any large fashion magazine, you could find huge ads and many of them. For example in the 2007 September issue of vogue, that weighed in at an astounding 4 pounds, 9 ounces, out of the 840 pages in the magazine, 727 of them were ads. Vogue said that that number dropped by 36% to only a mere 429 pages. So why the steep decline? Well it is a culmination of a few things, but mostly just the three elephants in the room; free marketing, cheap marketing and the economic downturn. With all the money lost in the stock market and everything else, the big fashion companies that spend a ton of money on those big fancy ads we all love, have either been cutting back or cutting out.

So now, without those big extensive ads, what are these huge companies doing to compensate? They, like many others, are utilizing the full capability of social networking sites like twitter, youtube, facebook, mixx, etc. They are using the free ad space that is there by creating fan pages blogs, etc and buying up digital ad space. Almost any large website you go on you will see the banner ads down the side and across the top. “These are advertisers where luxury and perfection and style is first and foremost. The Web experience was pretty cluttered. Now that there are bigger screens on desks, hi-def, beautiful video in real time, iPhone apps that look beautiful, the aesthetics have gotten to a place they are interested in,” says Drew Schutte, senior vice president and chief revenue officer for Condé Nast Digital, which is trying to boost the number of ad packages it sells that include both print ads and digital ads. Is this the future for ads in regards to fashion, or ads in general. With the decline in print, and the incline in digital media outlets, it seems it may be so.

For any body who is or wants to be a fashionista, we are all aware of Vogue’s legendary September Issue. This is the Coup De Gra of Fashion, the high light issue of the year for Vogue and Fashion Magazines everywhere. Well, now the process, work, and hours that go into making this famed issue is now going to be on the silver screen. Titled The September Issue, the movie takes an indepth look with unparalled coverage of Anna Wintour and her iconic magazine, more specifically The September Issue. I, as well as many others, will be looking very forward to seeing this movie, which is being released on August 28th. See you at the theatre! Click Here to see a preview!

The construction for the 3.1 Phillip Lim started way before it’s 3 o’clock call time. With a 3-hour break at the tent between his and Micheal Kors’s show everyone waited with abated breath for what the stellar Mr. Lim would pull out of his box of tricks. Yet when I entered my jaw still dropped to the floor I was so impressed. A huge stage was set up with bright lights overhead and the Lissy Trullie band playing. Models were pale faced with very close cropped bobs, perhaps Lim was looking to please Anna Wintour even more? The collection was dark and mysterious and all together fabulous. The palate was mostly black with a little beige and some colored pieces thrown in.

Without a doubt the strongest part of the collection was his amazing array of coats- nearly every look had one, each with their own look and style; some cropped blazers, some furs, some snake-skin rain coats and more. The collection was a feast for the eyes, however I couldn’t stop myself from drooling over the amazing Christian Louboutins parade down the runway.