WASHINGTON — First Lady Laura Bush, combining fashion with advocacy for one of her leading causes, is to attend a red dress fashion show Friday in New York to raise awareness of heart disease risk and prevention among women.
This will be the second time for the event, scheduled on the first day of New York Fashion Week, as part of National Wear Red Day. Last year, the first lady wore a red suit by Oscar de la Renta, who designed several of her recent inaugural outfits.
“She hasn’t picked out what she will wear yet” to this week’s show, Bush’s press secretary, Gordon Johndroe, said in an e-mail to WWD.
Twenty-two American designers and their red outfits are listed as participating in the show in Bryant Park. They include de la Renta, Badgley Mischka, Betsey Johnson, Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Narciso Rodriguez, Carmen Marc Valvo, Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger, Diane von Furstenberg, Nicole Miller, Zac Posen and Proenza Schouler.
Wearing red is intended “as a visual red alert” that heart disease is the number-one cause of death among women, according to a statement from the campaign’s founders, the Department of Health and Human Services; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and National Institutes of Health. Other red dress events are scheduled around the country this week, including a Thursday fashion show in Washington, whose chairman is Maria Cole, the wife of designer Kenneth Cole and daughter of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
The Heart Truth education campaign was started in 2003. The dresses from last year’s fashion show became part of the Heart Truth Road Show that traveled to shopping malls in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Diego, Dallas and Miami to promote the cause, provide healthy heart information and heart disease risk factor screenings.