NEW YORK - WITH recession ripping a hole in the US retail industry, designers are struggling to come up with clothes women feel they can't do without as they unveil their collections at New York's fashion shows this week.

Designers at the semi-annual Fashion Week face the dual challenges of trimming their own spending on the shows while enticing penny-pinching buyers and consumers to boost their spending.

'We're counting on the industry to step up with something new,' said Pete Nordstrom, president of merchandising for the upscale Nordstrom department stores.

They face sinking US retail sales and a devastating credit crunch, while US job losses last month were the worst in 34 years. On the buying front, the International Council of Shopping Centers estimated 148,000 retail stores closed last year and another 73,000 would shut in the first half of 2009.

'Right now, it's like you're in the middle of a tsunami,' said designer Diane von Furstenberg, who heads up the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

A solution, she said, is to make clothes highly appealing. 'You need to show clothes that are real friends to women, so that 'friend' will make you feel good when you open your closet,' said von Furstenberg, whose flattering wrap dresses put her firmly on the fashion map in the 1970s.

Depression echoes
Others are using the hard times as inspiration. Catherine Malandrino is showing cocktail dresses in the Rainbow Room, an Art Deco-style nightspot that first opened in 1934.

'I chose the Rainbow Room because it was a room born in a certain time, in the depth of the Great Depression,' Malandrino said, noting she will brighten up her event with 'some Champagne, some romance, some glamour and some music.'

Von Furstenberg is hosting her own runway show and a second show for American Express, which is charging its cardholders US$150 ($226) apiece for tickets online, featuring not only looks for fall but for nearer-term spring and summer.

That strategy breaks from the traditional cycle of looking far ahead - this week's shows are Fall 2009 collections - and seeks to appeal more immediately to consumers.

The twice-a-year Fashion Week shows inject some US$773 million into New York City's economy and support 175,000 fashion industry-related jobs, according to city officials.

But the affluence that backs much of the industry has taken a hit with the hammering of Wall Street that is the core of much New York City wealth.

Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail consulting firm, said she is seeing a 'values correction' among affluent consumers.

'We're hearing consumers tell us, 'I used to care about designer brands and now I don't,'' she said.

Fern Mallis of IMG Fashion, which runs Fashion Week, jokingly proposed a theme song: 'We might have to play the Bee Gees' song all week. It's called 'Stayin' Alive'. -REUTERS