Fade To Black - Brief Article

Talk, Nov, 2001 by Charles Gandee

THE COVETED FRONT-ROW SEATS HAD ALL BEEN ASSIGNED TO THE WOMEN WHO WEAR CHANEL SUNGLASSES AND CARRY Birkin bags, the women who have learned over the years to step very slowly out of their black Lincoln Town Cars, one crocodile Manolo slingback at a time, so that Bill Cunningham, the legendary lensman who keep swatch at the entrance to the billowing white tent pitched in Bryant Park for New York's semiannual Fashion Week, can get a good shot for the Style section of the Sunday New York Times.

Aerin Lauder would have been there. Serena Boardman would have been there. Anna Wintour would have been there. And they would all have been smiling their camera-ready smiles. But they never got the chance. Designer Michael Kors was standing on the terrace of his Greenwich Village apartment, looking south, at 9:03 a.m. on September 11-having a final cup of coffee before heading off to do the last fitting for his spring 2002 collection-when he saw United Airlines Flight 175 crash into the south tower of the World Trade Cent er. Ironically, perversely, cruelly, the idea behind the show that never happened was, according to Kors, "to take people away from this romantic country thing." The effect was achieved.