Fashion Week: Mac and Say Cheese at Doucette Duvall

Attending the Spring 2009 presentation for Doucette Duvall is like entering the fashion universe as agitators wish it could be, not as it usually is.

In a packed boardroom on the second floor of Christie's Rockefeller Center, models stood smiling behind a winding path of green apples on the floor, not stomping, scowling, down a runway. One dark-skinned beauty in a long vintage-inspired gown mugged for the camera while preparing to nibble on a mac and cheese appetizer.

The founders of this tiny, three-year-old brand had, in their indie way, successfully addressed some of the problems that landed back on the radar this Fashion Week. Multi-cultural casting? Done. Models encouraged to eat? Yup. (Bonus points for serving them comfort food and letting them eat it during the presentation.) As for the production of those clothes: Made in New York.

Sure, it's a lot easier to do local production when your revenues are only $200,000 a season and you only sell to 30 stores, than it is after you hit it big. But as big-name designers mobilize this week with Save the Garment Center T-shirts under the tents and meetings with City Hall behind the scenes, Doucette Douvall served as a small but pointed reminder of why the garment center should be saved.

Stephanie Doucette and her neighbor Annebet Duvall were able to turn their love of vintage fashion and patterns into a business, and have kept it going, because of fabric, trim and production here. They regularly capitalize on one of the many oft-touted benefits of local manufacturing--the ability to change a design last minute.

Two days before the presentation, Stephanie Doucette decided to lengthen the slit on a blue and white striped belted dress. Her local factory turned around that change, and reduced the hem-length, too, in time for Tuesday's presentation.

"It's nice to know the people who sew your stuff," she said.

by Catherine Curan

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