After venturing out last night during Fashion’s Night Out, I have to say that the event is not what is used to be. The atmosphere on the streets (at least where I was: 57th St and Fifth Ave) had none of the excitement and electricity as previous years. Many of the high-end designers in the area really scaled back this year. Tiffany’s was pretty empty. No events there. Unlike last year’s spectacle, where the store set up a disco on the main floor. Gucci and Prada weren’t doing anything either. Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles were the only celebs inside Prada. Other than that, there was a pianist but none of the festive bubbly to accompany the music.
The happenings were at some major retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman where I found a number of celebrities, including Victoria Beckham, Anna Wintour and Rachel Zoe. We ended up skipping both Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue and going home early… The Mister accompanied me again this year to take snapshots. Check out his slideshow.
Fashionable Femme Jen also ventured out. Jen started in Midtown and ended up downtown. She had a similar assessment of the evening:
I dragged my boyfriend around 5th Ave last night and we were both pretty disappointed. The previous years were absolutely spectacular in comparison. Van Cleef had nothing going on (they had the best champagne the last few years). I was in line at Bergdorf to get a copy of Vogue signed by Anna Wintour, but she left after 10 minutes of signing (I was among the first 100 people in line and couldn’t believe she just upped and left) leaving many, many disheartened fans.
At 7pm, we ended up going down to Soho to have a look, and didn’t find anything special there either. Most of the stores that had events were mobbed (and those “events” paled in comparison to previous years). The highlight for me was getting a “makeover” at the Balm shop-in-shop at Duane Reade (a little unexpected) on my walk home.
I had a similar experience in the meatpacking. A number of shops were closed, those that were open totally scaled back on their events. Few shops offered free drinks or anything else for that matter. There were a few shops that had djs – but the places just seemed … sad. The overall vibe of the night was “it’s over”.
Agreed! I was (regretfully) in SoHo and it was an absolute mess. I even attended a few invite-only parties and those were even boring! Even if you wanted to shop, there was no way you’d have the patience/space/assistance to find anything. FNO is an awesome opportunity for brands and shops to really express themselves and their point of view through an experience and I felt like everyone really dropped the ball. Cheap champagne and a DJ does not FNO make (or so I thought).
- nicola, nicolalikes.blogspot.com
i guess they realized that it is simply not worth it and at the end of the year does not bring neither pubblicity nor money. Plus i guess they have to pay celebrities to show up. At the end all it matters is the revenue they are businesses. I’ve never ever been to FNO as i am simply not interested. I don’t feel to shop on a given day, i couldnt care less if they give me a glass of wine or have me listen to music, i do not care about celebrities. So i guess they end up attracting that target of clientele which is simply NOT their clientele. Last year Chanel was offering free manicure? and do you think that the real chanel clientele would show up just to get a free manicure? cmon.. instead could be a big success if they were offering some specials something worth going and spending your money on that special day.
I’m sorry you were all disappointed. I stayed in Soho as well, Nicola, and got a $50 giftcard to Alexis Bittar, toured the new Tiffany store, and finished the night listening to Shontelle sing the highly addictive “Impossible” at Harney and Sons.
Still, I agree that there more crowded places were difficult to shop in and the event listings were disappointing this year. Haha. “Cheap champagne and a DJ does not FNO make” is exactly what I was thinking when I was going through the FNO website in advance. I feel like what they should really be doing is giving people incentive to spend money. There needs to be more of a focus on discounts and promotions and less on just giving people who wander in something random that they throw in their bags before moving on to the next location.
I think the fno mob jumping on the poor guys BMW In Greenwich village and destroying it effectively destroyed fno…it’s become a mischief drunks filled night…
The guy was terrified…
Maybe they finally realized that many potential customers are concerned about the economy?