New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expresses support for the fashion industry ahead of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which is projected to generate $850 million for the city. The fashion sector employs 5.7% of the city's workforce, equating to nearly 200,000 jobs. Model rights advocate Sarah Ziff founded the Model Alliance to promote fair pay and better working conditions for models.

1. Image via fashionisers.com

3. Image via new york times.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, here
with current president of the
CFDA Diane Von Furstenberg,
publicly shows his support for the
industry on the eve of fashion
week this year.

4. This year, Mercedes-Benz
fashion week will bring in an
estimated 850 million dollars to
New York City.

5. 532 million will go to tourism,
entertainment, eating out, and other
events associated with traveling to the
city for fashion week.

6. The fashion industry in
New York City employs
5.7% of the workforce,
almost two hundred
thousand people.

7. Pete Savignano/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

8. Marc Jacobs, whose
Spring/Summer ‘15
line is pictured here,
didn’t start paying his
models cash until
Spring 2013.
Image via fashionisers.com

9. Sarah Ziff, picture
here by Owen Bruce
for Pulp Magazine,
is a model who
founded
The Model
Alliance,
a worker’s-rights
organization for
those in the
industry, to help
ensure models get
fair pay and
reasonable working
conditions.

10. Cindy Ord/Getty Images
“You cannot separate people, their yearnings, their dreams,
and their inborn vanity from their interest in clothes.”
-Eleanor Lambert

11. Your complete guide to planning and running a business.