Lewis Hamilton cuts a dapper figure in NYC after cosying up to Gigi Hadid at Fashion Week

SPLASH/REX

Lewis looks dapper in white blazer while out in NYC

Lewis was spotted on the streets of SoHo, NYC, wearing a crisp white blazer jacket which he teamed with a black t-shirt and skinny black trousers.

He posed confidently for photographers, and finished off his look with a pair of black shoes and a gold chain around his neck.

The Formula One champ's outing comes after he was pictured cosying up to supermodel Gigi Hadid on Monday evening at Tijuana Picnic to toast the start of Men's Fashion Week.

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Although Lewis has been romantically linked to both Gigi and her best friend Kendall Jenner, it seems like he can cross one of those off the list, because Gigi's boyfriend Joe Jonas joined the pair at the lavish event.

Scientists build a mathematical model that gives fashion advice

Researchers have developed a mathematical model that is able to assess whether a person is fashionably dressed and to give advice on how to make the outfit more fashionable.
The creators are IRI researchers Edgar Simo-Serra and Francesc Moreno-Noguer and University of Toronto researchers Sanja Fidler and Raquel Urtasun. The algorithm was presented in the paper "Neuroaesthetics in Fashion: Modeling the Perception of Fashionability" at the 2015 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), the world's most important conference in this field, which was held in Boston (USA) in June.
The aim of the work is to build mathematical models that are able to understand the concept of fashion, that is, what makes a particular form of dress fashionable or unfashionable, and based on that, to make recommendations on how to dress.
To do this, the researchers created an Internet fashion dataset of over 144,000 user posts with images and associated information. The new algorithm was then able to predict how fashionable the clothes in the images were by using the "likes" received by each user post.
To build the model, the scientists combined a deep neural network with a conditional random field probabilistic model that can take various factors into account, such as the type of garment, the kind of user and the scene behind the person. The system can predict how fashionable a person looks, and more importantly, give fashion advice to users.

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Fashion’s new wanderlust: Coming to a season near you

I’m writing this on the road. It seems like you’re always on the road in fashion, these days. Over the last month or so, I’ve been to New York, Milan, Paris (twice) and now Rome. I skipped the regular trip to Florence, for the Italian menswear leg known as Pitti Uomo, in the middle.

This Rome trip is unexpected, though. Valentino has finished renovating its vast atelier on the Piazza Mignanelli, and thought it’d give us all a look. They cordoned off the square and presented their latest haute couture collection under the dying rays of the Roman sun. It was all rather spectacular.

It was also, I suspect, a portent of things to come. Because Valentino hadn’t gone off-piste alone.  They were following the likes of Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and now Gucci – who have all chosen to fly the press and a cadre of loyal clients out to shows for their pre-collections, off the beaten track of the traditional fashion calendar.


In pictures: Front row at Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture autumn/winter 2015

Pre-collections are a strange, amorphous lot, a no-man’s land with no rhyme, reason, or official schedule. Still, these jaunts work because we’ve nothing else to do (at least, in the mind of the designers). But when Tom Ford chose to take his autumn/winter 2015 collection to Los Angeles, adding another pitstop on the international calendar and sending a bunch of fashion editors skittering from east coast to west – rather than across the Atlantic to the London shows, which commenced on the same day – the system got its first great buck in about two decades. Because people abandoned a day or more of an established week in favour of seeing Ford’s renegade show. And, without realising, they’ve thus invited other designers to do the same. The collection Valentino showed in Rome was haute couture – the stuff we’ve seen since Sunday in Paris, where the label traditionally presents its wares. Why bother? Because its different – a way to mark yourself out.

That’s fine. The scarier thing, for me, is the implied breakdown of the entire system of fashion cities, of shows coordinated for convenience – and logistics, honestly. It’s about ensuring everyone can attend the damn things and see your clothes. How long before another major label decides that, rather than showing in one of fashion’s Big Four, they’ll take a break, drag everyone off-piste and out of their way to see a collection that could have been shown alongside all the others?

Give it a season.

I understand the wanderlust. But when fashion’s renegades pull away from traditional show weeks, what they also pull away from is a sense of community, and of comparison. They want to be considered as sole entities. But they’re not. They’re part of a fashion conversation, and that’s far more interesting than a monologue.

Paris fashion week: the six most memorable shows

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Armani Privé. Photos: AP, AFP, EPA, Reuters

Perhaps it was the designer's way of distracting us from the euro zone's recent turmoil or Greece's looming debt crisis, but the recent haute couture shows in Paris was a feast of the fantastical.

For what is fashion but for its ability to offer us escape? The glamour on Parisian runways is a chance for fashion fans to relish the myth-making prowess of the highest echelons of the craft. And at these prices, couture is pure fantasy for most people - in more ways than one.

This season was especially surreal. Who can forget the backgammon game at Chanel's table? How about a theatre piece on the Schiaparelli runway? Or perhaps you'd prefer a night out with Siouxsie and the Banshees at Armani Privé? What is certain is that the exclusive clientele still has many reasons to celebrate this season, and here are pick of the most memorable shows.

Julianne Moore wears Chanel.

Chanel reminds us that "Rien ne va plus"

This season it's rien ne va plus (French for "no further bets"), as one might hear at the roulette table. Chanel was playing power games, and Karl Lagerfeld turned the Grand Palais into Casino Royale, where celebrities such as Rita Ora gathered around a backgammon table to place bets and initiate other power players - think Kristen Stewart, Julianne Moore, Vanessa Paradis and Korean megastar G-Dragon, among others - to the pleasures of money games. Some in the audience, however, found satisfaction in admiring Chanel's celebrity clout and the edgy women's suits and cocktail dresses created using geisha influences. Needless to say, these were aimed at loosening the purse strings of an Asian clientele. A safe bet, for sure.

Schiaparelli

Theatre play at Schiaparelli

"Tonight we play," read the inscription on Schiaparelli's ephemeral theatre set at Place Vendôme. For his first outing for Schiaparelli, Bertrand Guyon, the brand's latest creative director (there've been so many we're almost losing count), cited London's fantasy, New York's urban realism and Paris' cultural life, blended with a touch of Roman baroque - in other words, the essence of cosmopolitan life. In this sense, masculine fabrics such as tweeds and tartans were used to craft luxurious outerwear worn over glamorous silk chiffon gowns that were adorned with hand-painted prints, while the typical Schiaparelli iris was woven into a golden brocade or came in various vibrant patchworks of fur. A coat in spinel and citrine-coloured mink patchworks paired with heliodor pants and a jet embroidered blouse caught attention, as well as a fluid dress in a green tourmaline chiffon worn with an iridescent organza biker jacket. One thing is certain: this show was Schiaparelli condensed - Elsa's surreal elements and eccentric fits were tamed by Guyon, and yet sublimated in a more wearable way. This was a successful debut collection that set the tone for Schiaparelli's upcoming ready-to-wear launch.

Giambattista Valli

Techno tulle at Giambattista Valli

Ruffled tulle, bejewelled detailing, embroidered macramé, ostrich feathers, mini-flower sequins and pearls, along with embroidered brocade, were put together in a highly feminine collection with a playful allure. Think a black dress with white detailing and a drop-waist ruffled tutu worn over pants, as well as a white organza and tulle ballgown adorned with mint-coloured floral embroideries. These were sharp, techno accessories. That said, the ballgowns presented towards the end of the show that came with exaggerated multi-ruffle trains and crystal embroideries made even tulle look heavy - they were clearly too much of a good thing. Those pieces were unnecessary, as the models could barely walk in them, but they certainly looked good on Instagram accounts later that day, when the photos were accompanied by the hashtag #extravaganza.

Armani Privé goes candy punk

Giorgio Armani is reputed for his meticulous craftsmanship, and his candy flavoured couture outfits this season proved the designer not only excels at luxury, but that he's also able to infuse it with a modern twist. In this sense, his muse this season embodied this chaotic yet glamorous woman - somewhere between late 1960s sophistication à la Edie Sedgwick and the punk-flavoured late '70s and early '80s of Siouxsie and the Banshees. She came with messy short hair and chose flats over heels - think a shocking pink pleated peplum jacket in chenille thread worn with black silk velvet pants. More elaborate outfits in vivid hues, such as a feathered overcoat paired with dégradé printed satin pants, amped up the collection. There was something bold and festive about Armani Privé here - the girls looked like they were just leaving Warhol's factory for a wild party somewhere in New York, and we wished we could join them.

Dior

Romance at Dior with Flemish masters and medieval florals

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Christian Dior Couture is as much associated with florals as Maison Margiela is associated with deconstructionism, and this season Raf Simons' blossoming did not disappoint. Compositions inspired by Flemish masters propelled us back into medieval times in a collection much infused with historical elements, such as chain-mail embellishments worn as chest pieces over Gothic reminiscent long gowns - a style that stood deliberately in contrast with the show's eye-catching geometric glass panels set design featuring a magenta runway. Simons further referred to the idea of the "forbidden fruit" and used both tailleur and flou techniques fused into each other. Standout pieces included a salmon-coloured neoprene coat that came with a wide fur sleeve and a tweed mélange collar, reminiscent of a medieval overcoat, as well as silk dresses that revealed sensual side slits. "I was intrigued by the idea of purity and innocence versus luxury and decadence, and how that is encapsulated by Dior's garden - no longer a flower garden but a sexual one," Simons said in a statement.

Galliano's grand proposal

We all know that Renzo Rosso made a bold move when he appointed John Galliano - whose reputation was at a record low at the time - at the helm of Maison Margiela. It took some guts to go so directly against the brand's essence and bind such an eccentric, egocentric designer to a faceless brand that was founded on understatement rather than the opulence one used to associate with Galliano. But as it turned out, Rosso made an excellent decision, and this season Galliano again proved himself to be a virtuoso. It was a strong collection, including sleek pieces, like the nude-coloured evening dress-coat in hand-painted neoprene mesh with a bonded silk cotton obi that were clearly reminiscent of the brand's founder. Other more opulent numbers, such as the hand-painted mesh coat-dress with hand-painted lining draped in the front to resemble thread embroidery, were breaking the mould.

Men's Fashion Week debuts in New York

When the next edition of New York Fashion Week kicks off Monday, there will be something new on the catwalks: a bunch of dudes, wearing dude clothes. It will be the first event devoted solely to menswear.

Previous events did show menswear, but it was a bit like those technical awards at the Oscars: the little part of the big event that nobody watches. Now, just like in European fashion capitals, dudes and dude clothes get their own party. And menswear designers are excited about the opportunity for a showcase where they won’t be upstaged by women’s fashion.

Granted, the men’s event won’t be as big. The marquee fall event typically attracts about four times the number of designers participating next week. But even a smaller event is still a powerful platform for big names like Calvin Klein and Michael Kors, as well as small labels looking to break through.

“Fashion Week is traditionally the place that allows designers to be able to get press attention, get buyer attention in a very efficient way,” says Wendy Liebmann with WSL Strategic Retail.

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The event comes amid a growing interest in selling to men. In the U.S., men’s apparel sales hit more than $60 billion dollars in 2013, according to NPD Group.

Having a male-focused Fashion Week in summer also aligns it with stores and the way they buy clothes. When menswear lines went out along with the women’s lines in the fall event, many designers felt it was useless.

“The menswear will be bought during the summer time and the womenswear will be bought during the fall,” explains Veronique Hyland, fashion news editor for The Cut. “They would be showing collections that they had actually already sold.”

Is a New York Fashion Week for Men Really a Good Idea?

Gentlemen, you’re up.

Next week begins the first-ever fashion week in New York City singularly devoted to menswear. NYFW: Men’s runs for three days starting Monday and encompasses 56 American menswear designers. Iconic design houses such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger will show along with such recent hot-shots as Public School, Thom Browne, and Rag & Bone. Small but lasting brands will include David Hart, Timo Weiland, and Duckie Brown. Most of them will show at Skylight Clarkson SQ, a well-known studio in SoHo.

It’s an event that buyers and designers have long clamored for, according to the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), the parent entity, because the event conveniently syncs the menswear shows with market week, when buyers for department stores and boutiques revisit each collection to select the runway looks they’ll actually put in their stores. Market week now falls in the days directly following the shows. 

But the New York event has also exposed some pressure points in the industry about the high priority that fashion brands give to the European shows. That impulse is pitted against the strength (or lack thereof) of designer loyalties to the Anna Wintour-allied CFDA. And a larger issue is whether much emphasis should be placed on the fashion calendar and market-week schedule at all.

In short: Even though some have asked for it, there is considerable debate about whether or not the industry actually needs a men’s week in New York.

The Public School runway show during MADE Fashion Week on Feb. 15, 2015, in New York City. Public School is one of the brands showing during NYFW:Men's this summer.

 

Photographer: Albert Urso/Getty Images

Helter Skelter Fashion Schedules 

Historically, menswear fashion editors, designers, and buyers have spent June and early July traipsing across Europe attending trade shows (Pitti Uomo) and branded fashion weeks (London, in particular, is impressive). They absorb the new looks from Saint Laurent or Versace over sunny golden days punctuated by double espressos, cigarette-break gossip sessions, and late-night dinners. In America, meanwhile, the months that elapsed between February’s Fall/Winter shows and July’s market week loomed like a black hole that drained buyers of any energy they had felt during the shows.

“There was a disconnect,” says Steven Kolb, the chief executive officer of the CFDA. 

Kolb says NYFW: Mens will allow the excitement of the runway shows and presentations to translate immediately and directly to the market floor when store buyers from Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman make their purchases.

“It makes more sense to sell while you’re showing,” he said. “And the American menswear editors and buyers saw a lot of homegrown talent in their backyard. They felt it was time to put that forward.”

Indeed, the effort strongly affirms American menswear in general, which has so far played a secondary role to American womenswear. That has to do, in part, with how, until now, any menswear shows in the U.S. were interspersed randomly among the womens shows during New York Fashion Week. It also gives domestic labels that can’t afford to show in Europe their own spotlight, on their own turf, during a week when womens shows won’t eclipse their fledgling status.  

Fashion designer David Hart (center) poses with models at the David Hart presentation during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2015 at Industria Studios on Feb. 11, 2015, in New York City. That event was sponsored by Cadillac.

Photographer: Mireya Acierto/Getty Images

Consumers Want Instant Gratification  

Debra Scherer, a former editor of Paris Vogue and Vogue Italia and the founder of the fashion and culture ’zine The Little Squares, says the branded fashion weeks that have emerged in virtually every global cosmopolitan center indicate a broken business model altogether. The whole thing is totally out of sync with how most people buy clothing. For instance: A seaplane last weekend flew over Hamptons beaches pulling a banner advertising that Net-a-Porter.com could deliver a summer dress for a fete that night, if a lady so desired. In other words, a buying culture built on instant gratification disregards what has become an outdated fashion schedule. 

“The [store] buyers are a problem because they’re not in sync with how people shop anymore, timing-wise,” Scherer says. “That Net-a-Porter plane—that’s how people shop. The whole system is broken. It would be great if the CFDA looked at how things are broken down and how could we take advantage of that.”

What’s more, a contingent of designers and editors has expressed something rather less than jubilation about this fashion calendar addition. (And Tom Ford famously eschewed New York altogether this year, choosing instead to show his Fall 2015 womenswear collection in his home base—and primary market—of Los Angeles earlier this year.)

NYFW: Men’s directly follows the much more prestigious men’s fashion weeks (London, June 12-15; Milan, June 20-23; Paris, June 24-28), adding considerable work for designers during a time that has traditionally been reserved for tanning in Mallorca or eating lobster rolls in Amagansett. And while it makes the mens shows more accessible for editors (especially those based along the West Coast) who didn’t have the financial or personal bandwidth to travel to the collections in Europe, it creates a monthlong travel marathon for those who do.

“Another branded fashion week is the last thing we need,” Scherer says. “It’s too much, and it’s bad for the industry because it dilutes everything. That’s the grumbling I hear from everyone.” 

Models walk the runway during the Calvin Klein Collection show as part of Milan Men's Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016 on June 21 in Milan.

 

Photographer: Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images

Support From the American Icons

Adding to the mental and emotional fatigue for some is the fact that the well-established American menswear labels—Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger—that could be acting as boosters for New York’s fledgling men’s week won’t be showing their newest, best work. Most have chosen to stage presentations rather than runway shows. Lauren will present the Spring/Summer 2016 Polo collection (not the high-end Purple Label it showed in Milan) on Tuesday, and Klein will conduct a presentation of the runway looks he already introduced in Milan. Spokespeople at each house strongly denied any reluctance to present in New York, but many brands announced their participation with less than a month’s notice.

“I don’t understand why those bigger designers wouldn’t totally embrace it,” says Sydney Reising, the founder of an eponymous publicity firm that has built a reputation for boosting emerging brands such as Siki Im and Hood by Air. “For my agency, it’s exciting to have the mens stuff here. The summer months are a really big lull in terms of cash flow; it’s good for us to have additional projects to work on.”

John Varvatos, on the other hand, made a strong move of support toward NYFW: Men’s with his announcement that after seven years he wouldn’t show in Milan at all this summer, waiting instead to introduce his new line in a New York runway show next week.   

Designers Michael Bastian and David Hart say they would have shown in NYFW: Men’s regardless of  Varvatos’s or, say, Lauren’s involvement. 

“I think it’s really important that all of us American menswear designers participate,” says Bastian, who has shown full collections in Milan and at the Pitti trade show but in recent seasons has held only private appointments for key editors to view his work. “I’m an American designer, and I always felt a show somewhere other than New York might look or feel out of context." 

Reising says her own young clients—including Richard Chai who is participating—“are going to do what they’re going to do, wherever they can, whenever.” But everyone agrees that the presence of major brands helps the cause significantly.

“Having those big names does legitimize the week,” Hart says. “It makes it feel like the menswear community is really embracing this.”

CFDA Executive Director Stephen Kolb (left) and Italo Zucchelli, men's creative director of the Calvin Klein Collection.

Photographer: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for CFDA

The Money Test

The real test—for everyone—will be if the inaugural NYFW: Men’s results in increased sales. After all, even the most darling of CFDA designers must prove his worth with tangible financial results. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to produce a show—a prohibitive expense for some—and investors need tangible results.

“The best indicator of success will be if we get more accounts looking at the collection and actually buying,” Bastian says.

A spokeswoman for the CFDA declined to say exactly how much it costs for a designer to participate in NYFW: Mens but did emphasize that such sponsors as Dockers provide a healthy “platform” that enables rising designers to show. Others, such as Bastian, have partnered with corporations like GMC to produce peripheral projects that augment their reach.

“Men’s industry events like the emergence of Men’s NYFW will only help to heighten the awareness of menswear,” says Tom Kalenderian, executive vice president and general merchandise manager of menswear at Barneys. “It will certainly have a positive effect on stimulating sales.” 

Kolb says NYFW: Men’s isn’t meant to become “a spectacle” built around pop culture and celebrity-filled front rows. He said it is positioned as an industry event focusing on “clothes and market week.” 

But NYFW: Mens could certainly stand to expand. Kolb admits as much: Riccardo Tisci's decision, at Givenchy, to show his spring/summer 2016 women’s collection in New York rather than in Paris this September is something to shoot for. 

“I would love to see us grow in stature in terms of additional brands,” Kolb says. “Givenchy showing womens in New York is very validating. One day would we like to get Givenchy to show their mens here? Maybe. I would love that.”

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The real test for NYFW: Men's will be if the inaugural event results in increased sales.

 

Photographer: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images

Amazon Gears Up for New York Fashion Week for Men

More than 40 million United States customers have made clothing, shoes or accessories purchases in the last 12 months on Amazon.com, said Cathy Beaudoin, president of Amazon Fashion, shown here. Still, brands are cautious about pricing.


The click-clack that echoed through the loftlike fashion photography studio was the same click-clack that can be heard in fashion offices around New York City: Manolo Blahnik high heels on polished floors.

In this instance they were being worn by Cathy Beaudoin, 51, when she paid a visit in mid-June from Seattle to the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, creative headquarters of Amazon Fashion, which Ms. Beaudoin oversees as president. This division of the online behemoth is the marquee sponsor of the first New York Fashion Week for men, to be held next week at Skylight Clarkson Sq in Manhattan.

But at the moment, Ms. Beaudoin was focused on a shoot for the site. A stylist was near a rack of clothes labeled “Surf and Skate,” and was crouching down to tinker with the hem of shorts worn by a male model. “We used to do all the photography in a fulfillment center in Kentucky,” Ms. Beaudoin said, adding, “it was hard to attract talent.”

Amazon hopes talent will abound at a party Monday night at the company’s studio, a reconfigured glass factory near the Wythe Hotel, featuring a photo exhibit by Erik Madigan Heck and hosted by Ms. Beaudoin and Steven Kolb, the chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Yet buzz over the week’s events has been subdued enough that the C.F.D.A. is subsidizing some editors’ international travel costs. What’s more, of the 43 established fashion labels staging runway shows or presentations, only seven (including Nautica, Tommy Hilfiger and Perry Ellis) offer their pieces for sale on Amazon.com. Eighteen others (Rag & Bone, Public School and Billy Reid among them) sell through other platforms in the Amazon Fashion portfolio, like East Dane and MyHabit. Amazon also owns Shopbop, a women’s fashion retailer.

It is part of Ms. Beaudoin’s mission to close this gap.

Amazon is privy to a lot of consumer data, she pointed out, and its fashion arm is trying to leverage this information into a better user experience, to use the argot of the day.

But the almighty algorithm, which has propelled the site to market domination in so many retail categories, is struggling to understand and predict the quick-moving, fickle contemporary fashion market.

In the world of books and movies, there is less fluctuation in what sells well. While there are always new books coming to market, the demand for “Harry Potter” will remain reliable. “In fashion, the inventory is obsolete in four months,” Ms. Beaudoin said. “Our algorithms weren’t made for seasonal buys.”

Getting consumers to think of Amazon as a cool place for fashion-forward shopping has also been tough, even though the platform carries more than 2,500 clothing labels, including popular department-store ones like Theory, BCBG Max Azria and Stuart Weitzman.

Retail is the “most significant source of Amazon’s profits,” said Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones, “and apparel is a big part of that.” The fashion week sponsorship, he added, “reflects the importance of apparel to its overall business.”

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Continue reading the main story
While fashion companies like these are drawn to Amazon’s huge reach — more than 40 million United States customers have made clothing, shoes or accessories purchases in the last 12 months on Amazon.com, Ms. Beaudoin said — many are concerned about tying their brands to a website that is far more a utility than a boutique.

Lacoste, for example, only began to sell its signature collared polo shirts and other pieces in February after an involved negotiation.

“Being a European brand, we needed to be sure we could convince our European shareholders that Amazon was going to uphold the positioning of the brand,” said Todd Bernstein, senior vice president for wholesale at Lacoste U.S.

The concerns mainly involved the presentation of the pieces on the site and the pricing. Legally, a wholesaler cannot insist that a retailer sell an item for a certain price. But a company like Lacoste does not want to offer its products on a website that may slash its prices (as Amazon does with books and other products) such that its brand comes off as down-market.

Mr. Bernstein said that the company is “very comfortable” with Amazon’s branding of Lacoste even as it takes note of Amazon’s discounting of its goods. “They’ve got pretty much everything on sale,” Mr. Bernstein said. (Later, he added, “Amazon seems to follow traditional markdown cycles.”)

And Ms. Beaudoin is trying to chip away at the perception of Amazon as a Walmart on the Web. “Better brands are becoming more and more excited,” she said.

It has helped that Amazon’s fashion team has positioned itself as a purveyor of “contemporary fashion” rather than luxury brands, a distinction Ms. Beaudoin and publicists make emphatically and frequently. “Luxury was never an aspiration,” Ms. Beaudoin said.

Still, Amazon was a sponsor of the 2012 Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, celebrating an exhibit of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada. It also hired Julie Gilhart, once fashion director at Barneys, as a consultant for three years. Amazon helped sponsor the gala as a sign of the company’s commitment to “participating in the industry,” Ms. Beaudoin said. It initially sought Ms. Gilhart’s luxury brand connections to build MyHabit, a flash-sale liquidation site, she added, and the two women remain on friendly terms.

Some mass-minded trendsetters are thrilled with their Amazon experience. “What has a bigger reach than Amazon?” the designer Rachel Zoe asked. “Amazon is a great destination for pretty much anything. They’ve been advocates of the collection and have put ads for it on taxis. It’s not five-page spreads in Vogue, but that’s the dream.” Sales of her clothes on Amazon have been strong, Ms. Zoe added.

At a time when the Internet has helped to democratize fashion, Amazon is a fitting sponsor for New York Fashion Week: Men’s, Mr. Kolb of the C.F.D.A. said. “It doesn’t sit so exclusively somewhere that is out of reach,” he said of today’s fashion. “You can see that in a number of designers doing capsule collections at mass retailers.”


Besides, Amazon is showing it cares about the special needs of the fashion industry, he said. “Cathy has a great pedigree of fashion experience,” Mr. Kolb said. “If you just had some geeky techy guys running things, I’d be worried, but they’re investing in people with fashion experience.”

Ms. Beaudoin’s fashion experience is not quite that of a couture-house sewing apprentice.

After graduating from Trinity College with a degree in history, she worked for a decade in New York at Ogilvy & Mather, in direct-response marketing and advertising. In the mid-1990s, she moved to San Francisco and worked for Gap Inc., helping to build a customer database, loyalty program and private label credit card. It was, Ms. Beaudoin said, “unintentionally my first fashion job.” From there, she moved to Old Navy.

Then in 2006, she oversaw the Gap’s introduction of Piperlime, an online shoe destination. “It was like doing a start-up in a safe corporate place,” she said. “I had total independence. I was building a brand from scratch with no physical entity.” (Piperlime flourished until it didn’t, and the Gap shut it down earlier this spring.)

By 2008, Amazon came calling. Ms. Beaudoin was well ensconced in her life in San Francisco, where she and her husband, Sean Beaudoin, a novelist, were raising a daughter. But Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, helped to convince her to move to Seattle to assist in building a fashion business. “We needed to be important to customers in categories that they buy from every day,” she said.

Unlike much of the rest of commerce in the Amazon jungle, this niche calls for the human touch. “With fashion, it’s an emotional category, not transactional,” she said.

Ms. Beaudoin knows this well; she is a member of Amazon Fashion’s dream demographic: busy professionals who care about style but don’t have time to shop. Yet she also embodies her company’s biggest challenge. The Equipment silk sleeveless top and Theory perforated leather skirt she wore as she walked around the Brooklyn studio were not bought on Amazon.com but on Shopbop.

And the click-clacking heels — a staple of fashion industry existence? Manolo Blahniks aren’t available for purchase on any Amazon Fashion site. Yet.