Fashion Week brings all the top designers from around the world, including the United States, to New York.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week just wrapped up last night and we've got a look at the buzz that was generated around "Made in USA" fashion.

With the White House constantly pushing our "Keep it Made in America" platform, it's to be expected that the first lady would keep her couture domestic.  Classic American designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta even called it her duty to wear American designers, especially to high-profile events. But what did she wear to the state dinner to honor China in January?  Alexander McQueen.

In a response to a statement release by Mrs. Obama who said that women should be able to wear whatever makes them feel comfortable, one of ManufactureThis' favorite American designers, Nanette Lepore (who, mind you, fights tooth and nail to save the garment district in NYC), countered with this:

 

Five years of raising awareness for New York's Garment Center have been rendered irrelevant by one statement. What Michelle Obama chooses to wear can save and create American jobs. Her influence on the American fashion industry does not detract from her agenda in the East Wing. The First Lady can support her causes and simultaneously support a valuable American industry and the thousands of people it employs. I wish she would rethink her statement.

...Like all businesses in America, fashion needs support from its leadership. It's important for Americans to buy American-made products, and we look to our First Lady and the President to set that standard. When she wears an American designer to a high profile international event she communicates to the world that the American fashion industry is significant and relevant. That makes a difference.

Fashion commentator and reality tv start, Joan Rivers has this to say about Mrs. Obama's choice to wear McQueen to the state dinner:

Wrong. Wrong. Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry, but we're pushing America and we're so behind in everything that we're doing. We're trying to push our own industries, the president's coming out and saying we've got to make more American stuff, you know what, darling? Buy American. Wrong. I like the Obamas, I voted for Obama, but totally wrong. Very badly advised. It was like Jackie Onassis used to sneak the French couture into the White House. At least she had the decency to have Oleg Cassini copy it. So she would say, I'm wearing Oleg Cassini when in reality, he had just copied a lot of the fashions.

With a slew of talented and creative American designers from NYC Fashion Week 2011, the first lady has her pick of pretty, domestically-made, frocks.  Other than Lepore, there's Anna Sui, Helmut Lang and Rag & Bone.