Live From New York

February 13, 2020

It’s NYC*LIVE Fashion Week. Designers, models, buyers, and a small army of photographers descended on West 43rd Street last night to showcase a slew of brand new looks for a room full of fashionistas. While some of the biggest name brands presented their new lines downtown for the national/international press at super exclusive invite-only affairs, the show here was far more intimate and the main characters – the designers and models – were very accessible as they mingled freely with mere mortals between lines. Once again, this year’s show was expertly organized by impresario Wm. Michael Reid of Xpozure Media.

Featured designers this year were primarily locally based artists and their ‘clothesracks’ ranged from very attractive to amazing. Sashaying down the 20 yards long runway toward the spotlights and photographers they looked incredible and they threw a hard glance for the cameras before executing a well practiced U-turn. This year the event added a side hall where the models took a second spin down a more brightly lit runway for an overflow bunch of shooters.

This show’s 2020 artists included Willie Hall (Women) Dabney Collection; Rick Bailey (Men) Rick Bailey Design; Briana Sigman (Women) Emerging Moda; Lutfor Rahman Hemu (Men & Women) Britts International Fashion, Inc.; Barron Wise (Men & Women) Barron Wise Designs; Serli & Gaser Tasci (Women) Milareya; Jude Charles (Men & Women) Jude Charles Designs; and Adrian Alicea (Men & Women) Adrian Alicea.

The Gazette caught up with the team from Milareya as they were packing up and spoke with designer Gaser Tasci. He told the Gazette that he was literally born into this line of work – his Dad ran it as the family business in Turkey – and still does. As of now they’re located both here and there, a USA based luxury leather and fur outerwear brand with operations and showrooms in New Jersey and Istanbul. Gaser also paints to express his creativity. Asked what advice he’d give a young designer just starting out he offered, “use your imagination. Imagination is everything.”