The 411 on Caravan Stylist Studio and Faces of New York Fashion Week

2012 September 8

Caravan Stylist Studio
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During the madness of FNO, Chic caught up with Claudine DeSola of Caravan Studio and Daniel Butler of Faces of New York Fashion Week for the scoop on locally made fashion...

Claudine DeSola

How should people "preserve" fashion?
Save the Garment Center! They're trying to bring people together to create more factories and jobs related to fashion in New York. We are evolving the fashion industry to a new level, through Caravan Stylist Studio, which I like to call the Andy Warhol factory for fashion designers.

Ha! What is it, exactly?
It’s just a space in the middle of the Garment Center that designers can use for press shows, previews, and fittings.

Who gets to use it?
A lot of people have the keys right now. I’m very giving with my keys!

Are you “New York Made”?
I am! I’m wearing Tucker! I’m New York born from Brooklyn and I live on Staten Island, which I’m proud of. Everybody is always like, 'Staten Island'?!

Daniel Butler

How did this event come about with such a vast collaborative effort?
It was quite natural because we launched the prototype of Faces of New York Fashion Week in February out of pure passion and gut instinct. We saw that Mashable had this article about how to follow Fashion Week online. There were tons of different Twitter accounts and blogs, which is exhausting for everybody so we were like 'okay, let’s collect all of this info in one accessible place.' We used our background in branding and advertising to package it. We will eventually expand beyond New York.

Who are the “faces” of New York Fashion Week?
The nice thing about this platform is that it gives the voice back to the not-so-well-known designers. They can utilize social media, giving them a voice even though they might not necessarily have the budgets to support it. So actually, the “faces” of New York Fashion Week are everybody.

How do these websites make people feel like insiders?
This is live feed. This is minute by minute. This is raw and uncensored. It is not gloss magazine images. It gives you a real sense of what’s going on now.

What is #NYMade and are you “New York Made”?
I am not “New York Made” but we support “New York Made" which extends to “US Made”.