Fashion hopefuls try out at NY design audition
Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK—It takes a thick skin to get discovered in the refined world of fashion. Just ask the hundreds of designer hopefuls who braved long lines, cold autumn rain and frank criticism to show their clothing and accessories to buyers on Tuesday at the Henri Bendel store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
A Bendel tradition, the “Open See” gives unknowns and newcomers a chance — remote as it may be — that their creations might be chosen and sold at what is one of New York’s most select and expensive stores. “These beads are just a little too plastic,” Bendel’s fashion director Scott Tepper told a necklace designer laden with armloads of chunky beadwork. “We don’t do anything that is not at least glass.”
Women’s wear buyer Terri Gustafson used tact to reject an array of bright skirts seemingly made of old neckties. “The esthetic of this is a little funkier than what this store is about,” she told the designer. Meanwhile, Bendel’s lingerie expert Anthony Legouri was giddy over his find — a “nipple concealer” for going braless — that the accessory maker claimed attaches to the skin merely with the strength of body heat.
Less successful at the “Open See” were a young designer hoping to sell skirts made of spun soybean protein, an accessory designer peddling a dog bed in the shape of a large pair of red lips and a handbag maker who concocted purses from old cigar boxes, paint, fake flowers and beads.
“She was a little blunt,” a crestfallen Earth Rowe of Brooklyn said after learning from a buyer that her jewellery was too dark. “I was up until 3 o’clock this morning working on these. Now I know.” But Bendel’s buyers keep a smile on their face. “I can’t say what’s been the worst thing I’ve seen,” said Legouri. “It’s going to discourage them.”
People who come to the “Open See” can be a bit naive, said Gustafson. “They have to understand this is a Fifth Avenue store,” she said. “There are certainly levels of quality that we are looking for.” Twice a year, “Open See” hopefuls line up in the early morning at Bendel’s back entrance and wait hours to show their wares to buyers waiting in the store’s basement.
The “Open See,” which began in the 1960s and was reinstated a few years ago, gives Bendel a shot at one-of-a-kind items and a way to nurture new talent, said Tepper. Those who get selected — now-successful designers Anna Sui and Todd Oldham were chosen in past years — may get signed on the spot. Others get encouragement, and still others are told, in effect, to go back to the drawing board.
At the end of this “Open See,” the accessory buyers found a number of contenders, the women’s apparel buyer found only a “bubble” skirt she liked and the lingerie expert happily clutched his tiny plastic bags of nipple concealers. Jewellery-designing hopeful Jill Levin headed back to Voorhees, New Jersey, where the mother of three works from home. “I guess Bendel’s wasn’t my place,” she said. “It was a shot in the dark.”
But Zachary Sadow — fresh out of college — left convinced that one of these days his soybean skirts will be a hit. “It’s just a matter of time before I get in somewhere like this,” he said, covering his creations in plastic to protect them from the rain. “Just being in New York and doing this is great”.