Fashion Week gives Scottsdale merchants a boost

Fashion Week has grown into one of Scottsdale's signature events, and many local clothing businesses are hoping to gain a boost from it while tourism officials see the added benefit of more people spending time in restaurants and stores.

Local Talent's designers will be featured during both Wearable ArtWalk and Fashion Week, she said.

"They consider (Fashion Week) an integral part of being able to really launch their careers," McRae said. "They want to become career designers and career-minded businesspeople. There's a lot riding on it with regard to them being able to launch their brands because they need a retail-client connection."

This year, Fashion Week has been moved from the Marshall Way-SouthBridge area to Fashion Square, and for the first time will include a community night.

"Fashion Week sets itself apart from other fashion weeks because the theme is see it on the runway, buy it in the stores," said Kate Birchler, Fashion Square's senior marketing manager. "It just gets more exciting. The event continues to grow every year."

Local Talent designers then will be featured in numerous fashion shows on Friday and Saturday, she said. That includes Local Talent's Rebecca Turley, named Fashion Week's 2010 Designer of the Year.

McRae, a designer herself, will launch her own line of men's wear during Fashion Week.

"The last show on Saturday night will be all the other local designers that are not having their own slot," she said.

McRae hopes one day to see a bustling garment district, a multifaceted hub of fashion-related businesses serving both the trade and the general public, along Fifth Avenue.

"We used to have fashion shows in the 1950s and 1960s around the Horse Fountain and down Fifth Avenue, and if we can revive all that, I think that would be fabulous," she said.

Fashion fans will make their way from Fashion Square into the downtown area, said Rachel Pearson, the Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau's director of corporate communications.

"We do often find that when people are coming down to the events, they make it more than an hour or two," she said. "They'll eat in the restaurants, have lunch or dinner, they'll shop and perhaps go into a nightclub. This is another chance to highlight downtown, and the retail and fashion community of downtown."