New York Giants Super Bowl champion Victor Cruz cut the ribbon today in a kick-off event for New York's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, now gearing up to debut Fall 2012 collections starting Thursday morning at Lincoln Center.

There's also a whirlwind of virtual activity in what the HighLow blog calls "the most egalitarian" New York Fashion Week yet, including a Facebook invitation to RSVP to live-streams of the runway shows and join the conversation on Twitter via the #liverunway hashtag.

YouTube and Maybelline will once again sponsor a real-time YouTube channel that will bring 30 of the Fall 2012 runway shows to the world. The runway videos will also be archived at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week YouTube channel.

Cover Girl is partnering with Polyvore and the Fashion Institute of Technology on Polyvore.com/Live, which will see four FIT grads debut their collections to an audience of fashion insiders and bloggers: Lauren Bagliore, Vengsarkar “Ven” Budhu, Sergio Guadarrama, and Dana-Maxx Pomerantz.Continue reading...

President Obama has returned to e-commerce and haute couture with Runway to Win, a collaborative campaign merchandise fundraiser pegged to the kickoff of New York Fashion Week. As fashionistas rev up for the Fall 2012 collections, designers and Dem supporters have been rallying to raise money, chicly, for the president's re-election campaign.

The collection features patriotic clothing and accessories, moderately priced from $45 to $95, from top designers including Tory Burch, Rachel Roy, Derek Lam, Beyoncé and Tina Knowles, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Diane von Furstenberg, Narciso Rodriguez, Vera Wang, Thakoon, Jason Wu, Grace Tsao-Wu and Laura Kofoid of Laudi Vindi, Marc Jacobs and Tracy Reese.Continue reading...

Fashion brands showing Autumn/Winter 2012 menswear collections in Milan over the weekend include New York-based John Varvatos, who highlighted his love of the Big Apple, and Burberry Prorsum, Emporio Armani, Prada — which used celeb models including Adrien Brody and Gary Oldman — and Calvin Klein, below.Continue reading...

In another digital first today, Burberry premiered its spring 2012 collection in London on Twitter (sharing each look in a virtual #tweetwalk before it went down the catwalk. The collection was also live-streamed on Burberry.com and on Facebook.

Below, take a peek at the S/S12 collection, which designer Christopher Bailey called an homage to craftsmanship and tradition, the Independent called "the best of British" fashion and the Telegraph called "gorgeous without the bling."Continue reading...

Now that New York Fashion Week is a wrap, the spotlight turns today to London, where British designers are showcasing at their Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Up and comers including the designing duo behind Preen, above, whose spring 2012 collection features high-tech lace and pixelated pastels inspired by Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set.

Burberry will once again live-stream its show (taking place Monday) at Burberry.com, where anyone can buy fashions directly from the runway. Not hitting the runway, however: Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, along with some models who feel LFW doesn't pay well enough to merit their time. (Click here for the full LFW schedule.)

There's hope that McQueen and McCartney will return to London Fashion Week in the spring, ahead of the London 2012 pre-Olympics buzz. The British Fashion Council, meanwhile, this week announced that Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen will participate in an arts-based collaboration, Britain Creates, part of the London 2012 cultural program.Continue reading...

With four more days of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, Maybelline touts its sponsorship of YouTube's live streaming coverage of the runway shows from Lincoln Center with roving reporter (and model/designer) Erin Wasson, who talks to designer Rebecca Taylor (and, oddly, Bravo "real housewife" Ramona Singer).

Today's  #NYFW spring/summer 2012 runway shows include Carolina Herrera, Donna Karan New York, Rebecca Minkoff, Betsey Johnson, and Perry Ellis. All except for DKNY are streaming on YouTube; DKNY's show will be streaming live on the brand's Facebook page at 2pm ET.

And in another interesting use of digital this fashion week, the Oscar de la Renta show will stream live on Tumblr tomorrow (9/13 at 6pm ET), with a user-generated stream of content tagged with #odlrlive already leading up to the livestream in a first for Tumblr — which is eager to stay in style with fashion brands and fashionistas via its real-time NYFW coverage, especially following a pre-Fashion Week pratfall on its own runway.

With the spring/summer 2012 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week shows getting rolling in New York, here's a viral video that's timely and trending on YouTube.

To promote the grand opening of Westfield Stratford, a behemoth of a retail shopping center in London, The Viral Factory created this promo to showcase "100 years of East London style in 100 seconds."

The video delivers just that - decades of fashion in a zippy 100 seconds that's a delight to watch. Check out the photos below for stills of each decade's fashion.Continue reading...

Gaggles of celebrities will be running around New York tonight at Fashion's Night Out events, and U2 fans in particular will be flocking to Bloomingdale's.

That's where Edun will host its FNO party featuring its "Storytellers and Liars" menswear collection for fall/winter, with guests Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk, from HBO's How to Make It in America, along with the organic label's founder Ali Hewson — and with any luck for those fans, her husband (and label co-founder) Bono, too.

One of a number of FNO shopping events that Bloomingdale's is hosting tonight, Edun will transform the Metro Level Men’s Department of into a temporary club: The Double Seven and The Lambs Club Pop Up, billed as "the ultimate gentleman’s lounge complete with special guest DJ, handcrafted cocktails and tasty bites." The first 100 people to make an Edun purchase will receive a limited edition Edun Live tee.Continue reading...