THREE years ago, a fashion event for Monique Péan meant stowing her best jewelry samples into an antique white box and hauling it to the Times Square offices of Vogue in the off chance that editors there might like her earthy, eco-friendly bracelets and necklaces.

But this month, like hundreds of upstart designers before her, Ms. Péan is making her debut at New York Fashion Week in a sartorial rite of passage that can often spell the difference between critical applause and financial ruin.

Of the 98 designers showing at Lincoln Center this fall, 14 are making their debut. For some, it represents entrée into an exclusive club and access to a lucrative market. Odd Molly, a vintage-inspired label from Stockholm, is hoping to capture hearts in New York with its show next Wednesday. For others, it is a way to assert cultural relevance. Adrienne Vittadini, for example, has been around since 1979, but is eager to reintroduce its fashions for the over-40 set.

But most are like Ms. Péan, a young upstart designer who, until a few months ago, was assembling necklaces on her living room table, and who knows that a successful show can jump-start a fledgling career. That was the Cinderella story of Doo-Ri Chung, a Korean-American designer who was working out of the basement of her parents' dry-cleaning business and selling her jersey dresses at Klee, a small Manhattan boutique, until she got rave reviews for her 2005 Fashion Week show, which hastened her ascent into stores like Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman.

But for every Doo-Ri Chung, there are countless more whose Fashion Week debut was the flame-out of a short career. Still, that doesn't discourage hordes of hungry designers every year.

"It's the culmination of my journey," said Ms. Péan, who is 29. "It means getting to the next level."

Mounting a fashion show at the tents takes considerable money — much more than it costs to rent a hotel suite or a downtown bar, which is what many struggling designers do during Fashion Week in a bid to grab the attention of the buyers, fashion editors, bloggers and stylists who turn the city into their department store.

For established brands, the cost to mount a show can top $750,000, said Fashion Week organizers. But for newcomers, estimates are more in the range of $70,000 to $100,000, much of it going to space rental, set design and the hiring of models and stylists. A model alone can demand anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 a show.

Ms. Péan estimates that her show will cost her about $15,000, not including many of the higher-ticket expenses, like site rental, makeup and hairstyling, paid by sponsors she has already lined up. Her models will work free in exchange for much-needed exposure and experience. Money alone, however, isn't enough. Executives at Fashion Week vet first-time designers — by how long they have been in the business and by whether they will generate press. Like everyone during Fashion Week, the event's organizers are looking for buzz-worthy designers.

"We do not take everyone who has money," said Christina Neault, executive producer of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Ms. Péan, who had not applied to show at Fashion Week before, said she was accepted because she was named a runner-up for the Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund award last year, and won the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award for accessories. She was also named one of "Ten Women on the Rise" in O Magazine's May issue and, in a nod that surely counts as press-worthy, Michelle Obama wore her bracelets twice this year.

But unlike other designers who have teams of event planners to pencil in schedules months ahead, she has only seven weeks to put on her show. Luckily, she had corporate training.

Ms. Péan came to fashion late. Raised in Washington, she attended the University of Pennsylvania before joining Goldman Sachs in 2003, working as an analyst of fixed-income securities. But when her 16-year-old sister died in a car crash in 2005, she re-evaluated her life and decided to follow her passion for body jewelry factory. The Goldman experience served her well in an industry that is long on talent but often short on business savvy.

"She's not a novice by any means," said Michael Kowalski, the chief executive of Tiffany & Company. "She has unusual crafting skills combined with an astute business sense."

Her first stop was Ahe, a French Polynesian atoll, to source the farmed pearls and beads made of recycled, crushed oyster shells that would be a motif of her spring 2011 collection. Her elegant and primitive-looking pieces are often inspired by indigenous art, and are made with eco-friendly materials like unpolished quartz, tourmaline and even slivers of fossilized woolly mammoth bone.

Then, she and her team retired to a small studio above the Stella McCartney boutique in the meatpacking district — a spare rectangular room with concrete floors and white walls — where about 70 bracelets and necklaces would be assembled using recycled gold, hand-hewn bone beads and shells inlaid with tiny diamonds, pieces that might sell for as much as $150,000.

Jewelry-making would be the easy part. Art direction and executing a fashion show were another matter. The fashion show would be taking place at the Box, one of the smaller venues at Lincoln Center, and a runway show was never an option. Instead, she wanted to have 10 models stand under spotlights like mannequins, so fashion editors and buyers could inspect the pieces up close. Several concepts to dress up the space were rejected as too expensive, so she embraced a more minimalist approach.

To help defray costs, she lined up W Hotels as a sponsor, which paid for the $15,000 rental. At the same time, Ms. Péan began negotiating with cosmetic companies to sponsor hair and makeup stylists. Aveda agreed to sponsor a hairstylist. And Koh Gen Do, a high-end cosmetics company based in Tokyo, agreed to sponsor Daniel Martin, a makeup artist.

There were still many logistics to pin down. Just before Labor Day, Ms. Péan held a casting body jewelry call for models, arranged by a business management firm she works with. They would need to be outfitted, so she e-mailed a friend, the designer Eviana Hartman, at Bodkin, a small Brooklyn design label, and asked if she could make 10 simple dresses. The two negotiated a deal to split the cost for 10 nude muslin dresses, which might later be sold as "Bodkin for Monique Péan."

Meanwhile, Ms. Péan has been pestered by last-minute expenses that won't be tallied until after the show: loading costs, fabric, printing extra invitations and hiring additional workers to help backstage. And as of Tuesday, a week before the show, only 42 of the 70 pieces she planned to show had been completed.

"It adds a little bit of stress," Ms. Péan said. But one thing is certain, she said. "I will get my pieces delivered by the 13th." Good thing. Her show takes place at 9 a.m. the next day.