The First Lady of Fashion Week
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
First Lady Laura Bush took a front row seat at Fashion Week Friday to check out the Red Dress Collection, a runway show of red outfits created by various prominent designers to raise awareness of the risks of heart disease among women.Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Now in its fifth year, the show has become a way for fashion designers to get their names out to regular women who may not otherwise follow the goings-on of the industry or New Yorks Fashion Week. By using models that ranged from actress Angela Bassett to NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, designers such as Donna Karan and Narciso Rodriguez are marketing their looks to a broader swath of shoppers. Some of the 23 dresses shown on Friday also will be displayed later this month at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
The event also was a way for companies such as Johnson & Johnson, which was a sponsor, to get its name out to women with a fashionable connection. The company placed a bottle of its St. Joseph low-strength aspirin in gift bags for the shows 1,000 attendees.
At the show, which was part of the Heart Truth campaign that the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute launched in 2002, fashion designers such as Carolina Herrera and Carmen Marc Valvo sat in the front row alongside dozens of attendees who eschewed New Yorks usual black uniform and wore bright red outfits instead. (Mrs. Bush wore a cherry-red silk suit by Bill Blass.)
Mrs. Bush kept a relatively low profile at the show, taking her seat shortly before it started and leaving quickly at the end. The main show stealer: Tennis champ Billie Jean King, who paired a red silk pantsuit by Gustavo Cadile with Adidas sneakers and received waves of applause as she bopped down the runway to the Michael Jackson song, Billie Jean.
