FRINGE ELEMENTS; PUNK T-SHIRTS, DESTROYED DENIM, GOTH ACCESSORIES, SURPLUS-STYLE OUTERWEAR -- THIS ALTERNA-SHOW HAD IT ALL.(To Be Confirmed and The Collective trade shows in New York)

Daily News Record, February, 2003 by GAVENAS, MARY LISA

To Be Confirmed and The Collective took place in the same town at the same time, otherwise the two trade shows were a million miles apart.

While upward of 7,500 attendees flocked uptown to Pier 94 to shop 400 companies at the 45th edition of The Collective, 1,500 invited buyers headed to an industrial no man's land in west Chelsea to eye 92 labels at the third TBC held in New York.

At TBC, Japanese buyers, New York fashionistas, and European exhibitors clustered on couches pitching their voices to be heard over the deejay's music, blowing smoke all over the unenforced no-cigarettes regulation, and swilling Tanqueray's free apple martinis, which were served by waitresses wandering through the show in all-black, biker-chick drag. Women pushed strollers....