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Style Lounge-ing At NY Fashion
Week Mercury, an award winning automotive brand known for its innovative interior and exterior design, sponsored the first-ever Mercury Milan Style Award. The winner showcased their Spring/ Summer ’07 collection as part of the 3rd annual STYLELOUNGE held at the Metropolitan Pavilion on 19th street in NY. Additionally, the designer will participate in FUNKSHION during Miami’s Fashion Week. For the competition, each designer was asked to create one signature piece that represents the breadth and style of his/ her label. This year’s winner is Mickey Sills of Scanty. We have featured Scanty before on FashionLedge.com and we would like to congratulate Mickey! There are a lot designer-based initiatives going on during New
York Fashion Week, but not all of them capture the true goal of
putting designers in front of press, clients and buyers. We think
that the Style Lounge has a lot of promise and so we took time to
chat with Laura Nizolek of Think PR to get a handle on the STYLELounge
and the Mercury Milan Style Award. Explain the premise behind this competition? Why was it created? STYLELounge was created in hopes of serving as an alternate venue to the tents; for emerging talents that don’t yet have the means to pay to participate elsewhere. We all know how popular reality TV is right now with shows like American Idol, where the public is urged to vote for their favorites….
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Mercury Milan and HFMUS decided to take this phenomenon and incorporate it into the STYLELounge venue. Hence the Milan Style Award was born. Milan and HFM chose 3 emerging designers. Ads ran in HFMUS Sept pubs like Elle, Elle décor, American Photo and Premiere urging for people to vote for their fave. People could vote all month via text message or online at www.elle.com/milan Just by voting they were entered to win a trip to Miami Fashion week FUNKSHION with a friend. The favorite designer would win a chance for an all expense paid show at both STYLELounge and FUNKSHION. Mercury thought this would be a great chance to involve the public and get the word out about STYLELounge. Are there any costs to the designers? None! Dj’s, venue, models, make up and hair stylists - - everything's covered! How do designers benefit? Pure exposure at a premium venue, complete with sponsors, etc. How frequent will this competition be held? HFMUS is constantly coming up with new innovative ways to engage the public and showcase/work with emerging talent. It is still undetermined if the Milan Style Award will become a repetitive award given out for seasons to come-we can be sure we’ll always see fun/exciting events such as this taking place at STYLELounge. Other special experiences and activities at STYLELounge included those provided by STYLELounge’s corporate sponsors including Mercury Milan® ( www.mercuryvehicles.com ), OPTI-FREE RepleniSH® (www.optifree.com), Nikon® (www.nikonusa.com), LensCrafters® (www.lenscrafters.com ), Oasys Mobile® (www.oasysmobile.com ), Elle GlamPhone® by Alcatel (www.glamphoneusa.com), as well as Moet & Chandon® Champagne (www.moet.com ) and El Diamante del Cielo® Tequila (www.handcraftedtequila.com) along with Players Extreme Infused Vodkas and Rums (www.playersextreme.com) offeried complimentary beverage service. Styling services for the fashion shows were provided compliments of BaByliss Pro® and their key hair stylist, Julien Farel and FACE Atelier® cosmetics ( www.faceatelier.com) and their key makeup artist, Andrea Claire Walmsley. Laura Nizolek |
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