Israeli gay wedding makes NY Fashion Week first

NEW YORK - In a New York Fashion Week first, an Israeli designer married his gay partner Saturday in a Valentine's Day ceremony shortly before his debut catwalk show in the Big Apple.

It was the first and probably the last wedding hosted in Fashion Week's heated tent headquarters at the Lincoln Center, which next season moves to new, yet-to-be-determined premises.

Tel Aviv-based Idan Cohen, who designs bridal and evening wear, married Israeli partner in life and business, Elad Borenstein, in the Pavilion, the same room hosting their afternoon catwalk show.

Energy healer and spiritual life coach Aleta St. James, who became the oldest woman in the United States to give birth to twins when she was 57, officiated and told her Twitter of a "glorious" wedding.

Homosexuals cannot legally marry their same-sex partners in Israel.

Civil marriage does not exist in the country, where the solemnization of marriage is entirely controlled by the state rabbinate, and homosexual unions are not in themselves recognised.

Cohen opened his studio in Tel Aviv in 2011 after studying in London.