Bloomberg: Fashion Week brings city $865M

Fashion Week is bringing a pretty penny to New York's economy.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that the semiannual extravaganza at Lincoln Center and other venues is expected to pump a record $865 million into the city's economy in 2012, up from an estimated $773 million in 2007.

Spending in hotels, restaurants and stores will generate $532 million this year, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The events typically attract more than 232,000 people each year, officials said.

This winter's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week ends Thursday.

"We are the fashion capital of the world," Bloomberg declared at the Fashion Incubator, which provides low-rent office space in midtown for emerging designers.

The mayor talked about several initiatives to keep the fashion industry, which employs 173,000 people and generates nearly $10 billion in wages for the city, vibrant and strong and to ensure the jobs are not lost overseas.

They include the 2010 launch of the Fashion Incubator and a mini-MBA program through the Fashion Institute of Technology that begins this summer.

Officials Monday also expressed interest in creating a "Made in New York" label that would add cachet to designers' lines.

Joining the mayor was designer Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America and an advocate of the city's Garment District, which has seen manufacturing jobs cut in half in the past 15 years.

Asked what fashion advice she had for the mayor, von Furstenberg blurted, "He's so hot, he doesn't need any."