fashion's night out!

Fashion's Night Out (FNO) was an amazing event for the public - which hyped up the city even more for Mercedes Benz NY Spring 2011 Fashion Week. The one-night celebration was dreamed up by Anna Wintour to lure shoppers into stores and revive the flagging fashion industry. Running only for its second time on Friday, September 10th , FNO fanned out to 100 cities around the country, and 16 countries planned their own versions.

The city was packed with fashionistas, and eager shoppers - making their way around the city to shop and visit their favourite stores, meet top designers and get pictures with many celebrities.

With my camera fully charged, my roommate, Jeanette and I began our FNO at 5:00pm at Macy's at Herald Square. After meeting the amazing soul singer, Joss Stone, and getting a few shots of Train and Tommy Hilfiger - we then moved on to Bergdorf Goodman, where there were hundreds of people lined up outside to see Victoria Beckham and Mary J. Blige. We wandered Bergdorf's browsing the lines of the top designers, mingled with fellow shoppers/browsers, and enjoyed free beverages and amazing blueberry frozen yogurt - yummm! Making our way out of Bergdorf's we ran into crazy fans awaiting to get a snapshot of Sarah Jessica Parker. On our way down in the elevator, we stood next to the flawless, Kelly Rutherford, Lily van der Woodsen from the TV series Gossip Girl. While being flustered by the fans and using the elevator as an escape, I have Kelly Rutherford on one side of me and Jeanette on the other side mouthing 'Get a picture of her!"...There was absolutely no way I was going to take my enormous camera and literally point it in her face. So although there is know picture evidence of this encounter, take my word - she is flawless! From Bergdorf Goodman's we made our way to Barney's where Mary - Kate and Ashley were making an appearance, and judging a karaoke contest - alongside the Proenza Schouler boys. So after a long and regretful wait, we got our snapshots of the girls and left the madness at Barneys. With only an hour left of FNO we wandered in and out of stores - Michael Kors, DKNY, Longchamp, and more - and danced, mingled, and loaded up on the last free goodies, cocktails, and glasses of champagne.

All and all our night was pretty eventful, but much was missed. There are so many things going on and are scattered all around NY. You really have to set your game plan at the beginning of the night and pick and choose your best route. With all the hype that came out of this crazy event - CBS aired a special on Fashion Night Out on Tuesday September 14th. Vogue.com has the full episode right here: http://bit.ly/bH4IRu

Anna Wintour was on CBS The Early Show the morning after to talk about this year's FNO. Check out her interview here: http://bit.ly/aPwACw