Mary Gehlhar, has thousands of hopeful fashion designers awaiting her to anoint them as peers to fashion royalty.

Gehlhar is Vice President of Fashion for GenArt,  a non-profit that showcases new talent in fashion, film, music and the visual arts.  Under Mary Gehlhar’s divisonal leadership, GenArt is considered the nation’s most productive fashion promoter.

It was in 1998 when the company was primarily focused on talent and the visual arts that Gehlhar took charge to develop a nascent fashion program that now spans the entire country with offices staging full fashion shows in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Multi faceted work no doubt, and within it is the daunting search for the next diamond in the rough to be polished and brought to shine in the world of fashion design.  Mary Gehlhar mines the gems and sets them in the crown.

Mary admits it is tough “getting to know the talent and the designers as I check out over a hundred new labels each year” but adds, “I get lots of support from the Industry.” Finding the new talent and promoting them is much tougher now than it was when she first took on the quest.

“It was so much easier then, when no one was interested in emerging talent, vis avis today’s great competition to discover the next great designer and brand the next big label.”

Gehlhar still sprints ahead of the pack and is far ahead of the curve, establishing through GenArt only the best and the brightest in the hotly contested field to be tomorrow’s fashion hierarch.

GenArt’s yearly fashion sensation is the presentation of their rocking Fashion Shows during New York’s Fashion Week each September.

Past shows have discovered such modern masters as  Zac Posen, Rebecca Taylor and Shoshanna Lowenstein, making GenArt every aspiring designer’s Great White Hope, as it is every fashion editor’s and big time merchandiser’s Must Do during Fashion Week.  GenArt takes its mission seriously separating the wheat from the chaff since today’s designer must also have the business acumen to take their designs to the next level. To qualify, the designers must not just be creatively talented, they need savvy in business production and have some experience in wholesaling their collection.

Gehlhar‘s favorite is meeting the talent for she says “It’s so exciting to meet emerging designers and appreciate the innovation of their work.  These are the people who are driving fashion forward.”

Always searching for new vistas and marketing approaches, she says, “Runway shows are undoubtedly exciting, but we would like to be even more creative and maybe intimate in presenting our designer’s work. 
I like the idea of showcasing the work through shopping events where people can get up close
to the new collections.”

New York Fashion Week show highlights 12 new talents — 6 designers in women’s wear, 2 in men’s wear and 4 in accessories. Ranging in style and point of view from the avant-garde to the minimal, the GenArt shows are the coveted tickets of the season. With 1000 attendees including heavy-hitters such as Bergdorf’s and Barney’s to small cutting-edge boutiques and all the media glitterati including Vogue, InStyle and The New York Times and W,  these shows are to fashion week what Cirque du Soleil is to Vegas.

Gehlhar is doing the second edition with Kaplan Publishing of her book, The Fashion Designer’s Survival Guide and with her capable hands already full, she makes only one promise:  Never be a designer!  As unstoppable as the fashion tide,  Mary Gehlhar surfs on ahead and rides the crest.

WHAT DIRECTION IS YOUR STYLE COMPASS POINTED TO?

FASHION:
Fall fashion this year is all my world.  Slim minimal skirts and dresses which are replacing the full, babydoll dresses of summer, cozy oversized knits, the return of the high heel, and my favorite color combination of navy and black!

TRAVEL:
I’m currently fixated on a trip to Austria....Vienna, Salzburg, and the countryside.  It may be obsessive to plan a trip around a potential photograph, but I keep imagining my 19 month old son, dressed in Lederhosen with a big glass of milk in an ornate Kaffeehaus.

ENTERTAINING:
As a new mother my friendships are a little malnourished so having friends to our country house each weekend lets us reconnect and catch-up.   We shop for fresh fish and simple ingredients, cook together, and take rosé to the beach at dusk.

GARDENING:
I love the alien shapes and low maintenance of cacti and succulents.

COLOR:
Years ago I banned brown from my wardrobe because it was complicating things but now I’m compensating at home. Chocolate is such a great color to mix with all shades of green and pink in the country and with blue and grey in the city.

ACCESSORIES:
I've become an enthusiastic collector of jewelry from a variety of new designers who use focus on texture in cashmere bangles, wood with crystal and heavy stone and glass.  Unique jewelry stands the test of time and I know that I will be mixing these pieces with my pearls when I'm 80.