NEW YORK, Jun 27, 2003/ FW/ --- Olympus focuses on fashion with the official sponsorship at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week.

Last Wednesday, on a joint announcement by Olympus America, Inc. and 7th on Sixth, producers of New York Fashion Week, Olympus camera has been named the 'Official Camera' of New York's Spring 2004 season.

Olympus will join a group of premier companies, including title sponsor Mercedes-Benz, VOGUE Magazine, W Hotels, Shu Uemura, Redken, Style Channel, Silhouette Eyewear, Ortho Evra, Luxe Concierge, and The New York Times, among others.

Olympus has committed to a three-year sponsorship program that will start with the September 2003 shows and continue through 2006.

"We're delighted to have Olympus join our community," said Fern Mallis, Vice President, Executive Director of 7th on Sixth. "Professional photographers are the key to this event. Fashion, models, the runways ... without the photographers, it couldn't happen! Having an official camera with the status, style and design of Olympus will be a great addition to our roster of partners."

Among the 15,000 fashion industry professionals who attend the event, Olympus will be particularly focused on the over 600 professional photographers who register for the shows.

Olympus is planning a series of special programs to recognize the professional photographers, and share with them the latest innovations in photographic technology.

This September's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week coincides with the introduction of the Olympus E-1, the world's first 100% digital interchangeable lens SLR system.

"High-end digital capture is increasingly critical in the fast-paced and competitive environment of fashion photography, and the new Olympus E-1 is the first camera designed to be digital from the ground up" said Martin Lee, senior vice president, marketing, Olympus America.

"We're eager to connect with the world's best fashion photographers in their environment to share our new E-1 technology, and we think these demanding professionals will appreciate the image quality, compact camera and lens size, durability, and speed they get from the E-1, as compared to the film-digital hybrids that many of them use now," he added.