Dresses in the Two E Bar/Lounge by (from left) Angela Gao, Wen Shi, Laura Siegel and Samantha Sleeper.

New York hotels love Spring Fashion Week, unspooling in the dead of winter, for obvious reasons – full rooms, bustling bars, parties in the ballrooms and a sprinkling of glamour. What better way to perk up a slow season?

Historically – even if we’re talking seasons, not decades – this has been the realm of hip boutique hotels, places like Standard High Line, The Empire Hotel, Hudson, Ace, Dream (uptown and downtown) and all the Ws. Most observe with a combination of parties, signature drinks, fashion blogger lounges, pop-up shops, even art students drawing fashion habitués in the lobby.

But this winter brings a Fashion Week surprise: The Pierre, an East Side luxury heavyweight better know for society parties than hipness that’s situated across Central Park from the Lincoln Center fashion tents (but around the corner from Barneys). (more…)

Fashions inside.

Once again New York Fashion Week breezes in, and suddenly Manhattan’s Upper West Side is uncharacteristically chic – at least until September 13.

The temporary white Mercedes Benz cube in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park is the epicenter. More than 70 designers will show including Michael Kors, Nanette Lepore, Charlotte Ronson, J Mendel — and Tracy Reese, who designed the sleeveless rose brocade dress worn by Michele Obama for her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Anyone who takes all that in deserves a drink — or lunch — a short walk from the cube.  A sampling of nearby hotels stand at the ready.

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The Empire lobby viewed from the mezzanine.

Sometimes a hotel just gets lucky. For years Fashion Week unfurled in big white tents in Bryant Park across the street from the Bryant Park Hotel.  But in 2010, the big twice-yearly show moved to a sleek gray cube planted in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. And just like that, luck winked at the Empire Hotel, so close you can scamper from hotel to cube in stilettos. (more…)

We’ve been noticing an abnormally high percentage of rangy, good-looking people around town. That means one thing – Fashion Week is back.  More than 200 designers unveil their creations during the Spring/Summer 2012 shows at the tents in Lincoln Center and a host of private venues through September 15.

What are New York’s fashion-forward hotels doing besides gleefully celebrating their full – or nearly full — houses? Hint: think “emerging designers ” – and fashion by association, that hint of glamour that rubs off on anyone around it.

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A Taipei-inspired dress.

For New York’s most style-obsessed hotels, Fashion Week is a gift. What better way to fill rooms during the dead of winter?  W Hotels, a super-savvy marketer, goes a step further and embraces Fashion Week as an opportunity to fill rooms and strut its stuff.

Not only is W a sponsor of Fall 2011 Fashion Week, currently sashaying through its new(ish) Lincoln Center home through February 17, on Thursday night W unveiled its own collection, Global Glam Fall 2011, nine new looks designed to capture the ethos of three new W properties in Austin, Mexico City and Tapei.

Has W acquired a house designer, a Marc or Stella or Project Runway winner, to dream up clothes that complement its carefully honed cool? (more…)

Fashion Week's home base.

New York Fashion Week unspools through September 16 in the big, gray cube planted temporarily next to Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House.  With over 100 designers strutting their Spring/Summer 2011 collections – and with more than a dozen new style-conscious hotels opening in New York this year – you’d think the two realms might overlap. And you’d be right.

Which is why we found ourselves elbowing our way into the Box, a midnight black runway room, for Andrew Buckler’s menswear show.

Buckler, a British designer known for eccentrically urbane designs aimed at cool, creative types, devised the cheeky uniforms – urban hipster meets Gangs of New York – sported by the staff at the new James Hotel, which opened September 1. (more…)