Fashion Week Diaries: A Caravan Of Tide Promotion

Mercedes-Benz pretty much stays out of everyone’s accidentally-on-purpose-mussed-up hair in the tents – you won’t see models at DVF walking with steering wheels (but can't you kind of see Saturn putting that in the next PR finalists' contracts?). Not always the case with corporate sponsors outside the Bryant Park bubble.

Personally, I thought the shamelessness of all the Tide promotion at the Style360 Fashion Show Caravan (sponsored by Tide Total Care) was delightfully amusing:

Exhibit A: Attractive woman handing out single-use packages of Tide at the door.

Exhibit B: Some charmingly un-fashion-y Italian Tide VP making a little speech before the show.

Exhibit C: When the music pumped up, the first lyrics we heard were “Get your clothes nice and clean, put your clothes in my washing machine…We’re gonna wash, rinse, spin!” No seriously, I frantically wrote them down so they’d be exactly right.

Exhibit D: The clothes! Each designer had at least one “Tide Total Care inspired outfit.” Suffice it to say that the right color palette for a bottle of detergent isn’t always the right color palette for ready-to-wear. 

On the left is a blue jersey sun suit (not a bathing suit, a sun suit) under a tangerine cellophane anorak. At right, a Ronen Chen ball gown that’s about three steps removed from an actual Costco-sized Tide bottle.

More subtly lovely were spectators’ retro-inspired pumps. Conical heels and slightly rounded toes make these more bearable than pointy-toed stilettos, and, apparently, you can get them for cheap. One fresh-faced attendee was wearing a black version from Charlotte Russe ($23). It’s currently available in five colors that are not black.

My tan stacked-heel pair is from H&M, but since H&M still refuses to build e-commerce capability, check out Seychelles’ similarly retro-inspired pumps ($90) at Nordstrom.