The tents at Bryant Park are back for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, and despite the downpour on Friday morning, the big white structure was crowded with hundreds of press members by 9 a.m. While it's not uncommon for the booths in the lobby area to offer free cups of coffee to the weary masses, for its fifth season as a sponsor, Lycra took a more experiential approach by creating an intimate French-style brasserie. The L-shape café, styled with French doors, wooden tables and chairs, banquettes, and a bar, serves pastries and coffee in the morning and afternoon.
The Invista brand used the Bra-sserie, as it's called, as a platform to launch its global campaign dubbed "Some Clothes Love You Back," which highlights Lycra's contribution the fashion industry and women's apparel. "For us, the Lycra fiber brand has been part of the fashion world really since [Lycra's] inception in 1959," says Linda Kearns, Invista's apparel communications director for North America. "We feel that the Bra-sserie is a natural and fun way to showcase the brand and its contribution to designers."The booth was the result of a brainstorming session at LaForce & Stevens. To pull the project together in about three weeks, the PR agency hired Philippe Gozlan, a French interior designer, to create an authentic look, and Tom Pace Event Productions to construct it. The load-in for the booth started at 8.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, and 24 hours later it was up and running as the tents opened.
With drinks playfully labeled "A Cup," "B Cup," and "C Cup," the list of what's being served is written on a chalk sandwich board and in a café-style, plastic covered menu. (The café serves only from 10 a.m. to noon and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.) Naturally, bras are on display, artfully presented on mannequins and set into niches in the wall. Framed images from the campaign—garments from labels such as True Religion and La Perla, shot by fashion photographer Laura Sciacovelli—line the walls.
For Lycra, the response to the café concept has been great. "We're full even when we're not serving.... It's a calm and collected way [for Fashion Week attendees] to get away," Kearns says. Later in the week, the booth will play host to a party for the campaign as well as its "Foundation of Fashion" exhibit, which is set up in a booth on the other side of the tent lobby.
The Invista brand used the Bra-sserie, as it's called, as a platform to launch its global campaign dubbed "Some Clothes Love You Back," which highlights Lycra's contribution the fashion industry and women's apparel. "For us, the Lycra fiber brand has been part of the fashion world really since [Lycra's] inception in 1959," says Linda Kearns, Invista's apparel communications director for North America. "We feel that the Bra-sserie is a natural and fun way to showcase the brand and its contribution to designers."The booth was the result of a brainstorming session at LaForce & Stevens. To pull the project together in about three weeks, the PR agency hired Philippe Gozlan, a French interior designer, to create an authentic look, and Tom Pace Event Productions to construct it. The load-in for the booth started at 8.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, and 24 hours later it was up and running as the tents opened.
With drinks playfully labeled "A Cup," "B Cup," and "C Cup," the list of what's being served is written on a chalk sandwich board and in a café-style, plastic covered menu. (The café serves only from 10 a.m. to noon and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.) Naturally, bras are on display, artfully presented on mannequins and set into niches in the wall. Framed images from the campaign—garments from labels such as True Religion and La Perla, shot by fashion photographer Laura Sciacovelli—line the walls.
For Lycra, the response to the café concept has been great. "We're full even when we're not serving.... It's a calm and collected way [for Fashion Week attendees] to get away," Kearns says. Later in the week, the booth will play host to a party for the campaign as well as its "Foundation of Fashion" exhibit, which is set up in a booth on the other side of the tent lobby.
Lycra's café inside the tents
Photo: Keith Sirchio for BizBash
The booth resembles a French café, with furnishings and design elements like wooden and tiled flooring, dark wooden café chairs, and lamplike fixtures.
Photo: Keith Sirchio for BizBash
At the counter in the front, servers in berets pour coffee into mugs or takeaway cups.
Photo: Keith Sirchio for BizBash
The branding is not too overt in the Bra-sserie—underwear sits on mannequins dotted throughout the space. Framed images from the campaign (taken by fashion photographer Laura Sciacovelli) line the walls.
Photo: Keith Sirchio for BizBash
