Supreme SS 09 showpackage debuts on MDC in a few hours

Taste matters. Creativity matters. Passion matters. When these things stop mattering what you have is not a fashion agency but a catalog board. This was the thought that ran through my mind as the first round of show packages started piling up on the scanning table at MDC. Part of what is heartening this season is many of the New York agencies have invested heavily in communicating a message about the identity of their brands, the taste-point that is personal and peculiar to them , to expressing what sets them distinctly and emphatically from the rest of the pack. It is not a secret (given the very active Hiss Squad that fuels my off duty life) that these are troubled times for the New York modeling industry. Agents, girls, bookers, backers are swirling from place to place in a big frenzy of uncertainty. The talk is... New York as the center of the global modeling industry is not holding; that a lack of innovation and creativity is making the shows in NY more and more inessential .
But I find it really inspiring that at least five agencies thus far (with more to come I imagine) have invested a lot of time and energy in being creative and different . Supreme, Marilyn, Elite and One took on a great challenge of scheduling and logistics and chose to commission unique portraits of each girl with one set photographer. New York Models pushed themselves this season in terms of production values. The Marilyn package blew my socks off because there was an attempt to resonate an idea of Spring: soft colors, a spirit of feminine abstraction and a clever visual rendition that made the girls resemble flowers. Glynis Selina Arban, the photographer of that package, as they say, truly turned it. Elite's main board (which did MDC the honor of speeding over the first package out) went for clarity of vision with the shots by Louis Christopher, His images of Emma Beam, Daul, Ali Stephens and Alice Burdeu renders those girls so inarguably beautiful that you feel grateful for that masterful classicism. There's a separate proposition pending from Elite+, which I can't wait to see tomorrow morning. I had a preview also of the One package, which is not just a package but a multimedia extravaganza. There's a stand-alone dedicated website plus a series of uniquely commissioned short films for each girl AND a making-of video as well as a beautifully structured physical package that seems to be Scott Lipps way of saying , "No holds barred this season".
And then there is the Supreme package which took a wonderfully spiritual and romantic turn from the past Paul Rowland point-of-view. As you can sense from the snap...it was a PRODUCTION...complete with a bound book of original art by a collection of artists. I staggered out onto Lafayette chanting 'hare hare hare hare". Tune into MDC in a few hours and you'll see exactly why. Its very exciting in the fashion week trenches right this second.