Looking for contact for freelancing design portfolio

Hey. I was reading over another post from 2003 written by a member who had some designs that she wanted to get out there and who wanted find someone who would like to use them professionally. The person who responded to her (named FREEDESIGN) replied that they may have some contacts in the design business who could take a look at her work. Unfortunately, the respondent thought that the original poster was trying to market fashion designs, and it turned out her art was more pattern-based. I am in the same situation and DO have fashion renderings. I am extremely interested in taking my work a step further and introducing a business element to my hobby of drawing fashion designs. Since I am moving to New York in a few months, I feel like this endeavor has the potential to really manifest into something serious, but I do not know where to start as far as contacts are concerned. If anyone reading this post has any advice for me about where to take my portfolio or how to crack into the fashion world as far as making contacts go, I would be very interested to hear it.