ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> <br />STORY: The sexy bandage dress got a Southern tweak for Spring 2013 at design label Herve Leger by Max Azria's runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York.<br/> <br />Designing pair Max and Lubov Azria added prints, patchworks and handcrafted embroideries to the iconic dress that often came in flirty A-line shapes.<br/> <br />Their inspiration: the women from Gee's Bend, Alabama - a small isolated, African-American hamlet where women made quilts for generations.<br/> <br />Isolated by a bend in the Alabama River, the Gee Bend women used their imagination to elevate a household necessity into a work of art.<br/> <br />"It was so interesting because the heritage of a woman in that particular - in Alabama, the African American population that was there," Lubov told Reuters.<br/> <br />"I mean the beauty. Think about it. We're educated in doing our craft, they are not. So they have so much original ideas, so much passion it's really fantastic."<br/> <br />The colors of the collection were neutral.<br/> <br />A lot of off white that the duo called "alabaster," were mixed with black and navy blue.<br/> <br />The looks were often finished with leather harnesses and belts.<br/> <br />The iconic bandage dress - famous for strips of fabric that hug a woman's body in all the right places - has been a favorite of Hollywood actresses and models since the 1980s when the French fashion house first unveiled the body-conscious style. In 1998, the Herve Leger label was acquired by BCBG Max Azria Group, an American fashion brand based in Los Angeles.
