Fashion Week's Runway Recession

CBS Evening News: How Are Designers Coping With More Frugal Buyers In A Stagnant Economy?

(CBS)  Fashion Week in New York - it's seven days of the hottest trends, and a frenzy of fabulousness.

But this week the couture crowd debuted their sweet looks for spring in a sour economy. Shoppers just aren't buying like they used to, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports.

One Fashion Week attendee said: "Normally, it's like, I want the funky shoes and the funky bag and it's not like that anymore."

Designers have been creating their collections against a backdrop of a stagnant retail market, soaring fuel prices and a battered stock market. They've had to ask themselves, in a down economy, "How do you grin and wear it?"

It forced big name designer Isaac Mizrahi to take a reality check.

"Before you start working on a collection you think, 'Oh right, people have no money to buy things, so how am I going to make them interested,'" said designer Isaac Mizrahi.

New collections are emphasizing timelessness and versatility, eye-popping color, pretty prints and accessories like bags and chunky jewelry - pieces that can spice up existing wardrobes.

Glamour Magazine's Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive says: "That old idea that used to exist in fashion that collections are out, now I've got to get something new doesn't really exist right now."

Last month, with the exception of WalMart, retailers saw declines in sales as high as nearly 8 percent.

So some high-end designers are jumping on the bandwagon, targeting budget consumers in lower-priced venues.

Dean Harris makes jewelry that normally sells in the low thousands. Most pieces in his new Target line are less than $40.

"It gave me great opportunity to design things for the larger market," Harris said.

Fashion's all about new trends - the industry is hoping the recession is one trend that quickly goes out of style.

[brdlikbllss]

'' .. all the kids used to gather and sing songs about their surgerys, then the nurse counter sued for kids what gather and sing songs about their surgerys know too much about what the nurses are doing wrong, and so sue, driving up the cost of malpractice insurance and driving down the number of patients what require a professional opinion (on the plus side though, there''s very professional competition due to the unattractive levels of high turnover, still the ''authoritys'' were way way too skilled) .. ''

[brdlikbllss]

'' .. i keep breathing bouquets, and the more i think back on them, the more i lay them out inside my mind like some bunch of gallerys in some bunch of museums, the more i realize: it is not i what am breathing them, what am storing them in my museum, it is they what are breathing me, storing themselfs in my museum .. ''

[brdlikbllss]

'' .. there''s all these ports, all over everywhere and everything, they leap out from little and grow big to fit in my hand or to surround me, they shrink down from big to fit in my hand or to surround me, they phase in from same size to appear in my hand or to surround me, they can be like light, or like water, or like rainbows, or like clouds, they can be like volcanos or storms meadows or memorys, they tend to be beautiful and pleasant, sometimes rarely they''ve been nightmares, the worlds as we know them are but maps to all the other worlds, no two maps are the same, yet there''s infinite copys of each and everyone, and any and all may be looked upon (translated) in whole new ways .. worlds can be toggled like video games, numbers and types of sick beds can be reduced or augmented, types of sick beds may be altered to and from those that are self-inflicted for sport and education and entertainment and those that are against our wills or the wills of those there at .. endless is the incredible forevers that are squeezed even into the smallest remotest county within even the smallest subatomic particle, if you believe there even is a smallest .. ''