Latest Fashions, No Waiting

To: Readers

From: Michael Quintanilla, Times fashion writer

NEW YORK--Here I am in Manhattan for 7th on Sixth, the semiannual fashion ritual of viewing designer duds. And this year’s buzz is Seventh Avenue’s new cyberspace ventures.

With the click of a mouse, you can be a cyber fashionista. Might I become obsolete?

Fashions for spring 2000--the first collections of the new millennium--are to begin appearing today on two Web sites, one highlighting fashion, the other beauty.

While it’s not really like being there, https://www.vogue.com is to present the New York collections on the Internet for the first time.

Vogue says it will bring you on-the-scene reports of runway trends as well as gossip from the front row to backstage.

The magazine site plans to post every outfit shown in the spring 2000 collections (and there are almost 100 designers showing here this week). A look is only a nanosecond away, and the viewer can zoom in on texture, pattern and other details. Vogue has similar plans for the shows in London, Milan and Paris.

For makeup and hair, via live streaming video, there is https://www.ibeauty.com. Backstage interviews with makeup artists will be on the Web site next week. (For the next three years, Ibeauty.com will be the exclusive beauty Internet sponsor of the New York shows.)

Consumers are likely to enjoy these near-instantaneous fashion moments. And probably so will knockoff artists. For years those clothing chains and manufacturers have been cloning designer looks within hours of their runway debuts. Now they will be able to complete the process faster and more efficiently, thanks to the mouse-eye view.

So maybe it’s Calvin, Donna and Ralph who should worry.

And moi?

Now that I think about it, fashions have always come and gone. But the real scoops are what happens in between the shows. After all, it’s more lifestyle than clothes these days. That’s where I have the edge.

Like my mama always says, for the real story she goes to the newspaper.