It has been a life long dream of mine to present my Collection in New York during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.What I found out as a result of me navigating through the jungle of fashion world was, unfortunately, not only disappointing, but also very discouraging. My journey began several months before September 2010 Fashion Week in New York. In March of 2010 I contacted Committee in charge of Mercedes-Benz Accessories Exhibit and requested necessary information on the requirements for the participants. I should, probably, mention that Accessories Exhibit was created specifically to give an opportunity for accessories designers (jewelry, bags, shoes, hats and etc.) to display new Collections for upcoming Season during the Fashion Week . The official site for Accessories Exhibit stated that: "Located in the Main Lobby, this gallery filled with beautiful collections of handbags, jewelry, watches and more will be on display for guests to enjoy throughout the (Fashion) week." 
And so, seduced by the possibility of presenting my new Collection to the attention of editors and buyers during the Fashion Week I doubled my efforts to bring hats back to the glorious forefront of the Mercedes-Benz Accessories Exhibit. Here I would like to stop and make a very important point: I will not speak for those designers who create jewelry, bags and shoes but I can, most certainly, speak about the process of designing a hat Collection. Hats are the single most powerful accessory capable of immediate transformation not only of the style but also the persona.They have too much character. Behind each and every one of my Collections is a concept transformed into the story. This transformation usually occurs with the help of many ingredients: design, color, materials, final result and - the best part of it all - presentation. Each story can be told only by presenting Collection as a whole. Frankly speaking, I do not know why any designer would present it any other way. Beautiful dinner must be served on the beautifully set table. Beautiful Collection must be presented in the way that best tells the story behind it...
And so, in a few days after contacting Committee I was asked to send my press kit + photographs of my previous work including my previous Collections. I immediately submitted everything that was asked of me. A month later, when I almost lost any hope to be a part of Accessories Exhibit, a received an answer - I was accepted as a participant and promised that farther information will be forwarded to me closer to the end of June. I was overjoyed: not only my worked was considered up to the standard, but I will get to live the experience of the Accessories Exhibit and to see my dream come true... 
The first disappointment came at the end of July - days turned into weeks and I still did not have any information.I decided to call the person in charge of providing information to participating designers. After several attempts to reach her I was, finally, told, that for some inexplicable reason my info kit never reached me. I was assured that information was distributed to the participating designers weeks!!! prior to my call and they have absolutely no idea what happened. What surprised me the most is that there was no follow up to check if every participant received their info. Later, I found out that communication was one of the weakest points. 
For example, e-mails would be rarely returned in a timely manner. Some of them came a week later or did not came at all or came only after repeated attempts. Often e-mails were written by different people so, ultimately, it was almost impossible to know who is in charge of what. At the end of all of it it felt almost as if they were doing me a big favor by simply responding to the inquiries. It became clear that in order to go through with presenting your Collection at Lincoln Center you had to spent considerable amount of time extracting basic info. There was no guidance at all. Was it frustrating? Yes!!!To be continued....
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