17 Things That Happened at New York Fashion Week
17 Things That Happened at New York Fashion Week
This sh*t was bananas — literally!
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Remember how during the pandemic, the industry thought that fashion week was just too much and needed to slow down? Yeah, me too — hahaha. Here we are in the throes of a fall 2023 show season that feels the most “normal” the shows have since the pandemic began in 2020. This season’s official New York Fashion Week calendar included nearly 150 events. On top of those, there were after parties in places like the Boom Boom Room. The coverage was dominated not by issues like inclusion and sustainability and elitism and so forth but scenesters like Julia Fox, a White Lotus star on a runway, and Tory Burch. In case you didn’t follow it or have been locked out of Vogue Runway by the new paywall, here’s everything you need to know about the New York shows that just wrapped.
1 - Remember when Balenciaga sent out fashion show invitations on smashed iPhones? And everyone was like OMG? There’s something about turning trash into invites to showcases of the world’s most expensive clothing that really gets fashion people intrigued. Area designer Piotrek Panszczyk certainly had me piqued when he sent out invitations comprised of paper bags, a fake crumpled receipt, and rubber partially peeled bananas. Instagram fashion partnerships head Eva Chen showed how stunningly realistic these invites were. They were also — I’ll take her word for it — scented.
“This season is all about fruits,” Panszczyk told Vogue. “The beauty of them, but also the symbolic meaning of them. In a way you can think of fruit as something fresh, a new start, but when it starts decaying, it becomes about mortality.” You know, I definitely felt at least 10 percent more alive when I looked at the show — which really did feature a lot of bananas — because it was just FUN in a 2009 Lady Gaga sort of way.
2 - You may have heard that some people who go to New York Fashion Week deem Tory Burch “cool” now. The New York Times reports that a “pair of whispering fashion writers” in the second row at the September show and “three writers clustered at an industry party two months later” have decided that “the brand — from what was presented on the runway — simply looked cooler.” Tory Burch’s new runway and campaign stylist Brian Molloy said this hasn’t stemmed from a “concerted effort,” it’s just that, “I think it was like, ‘OK, what do we have to say here? What do we want to say?’”
3 - Fashion people were also really excited by Khaite's show, which featured two pairs of wide-legged shearling pants that will make your butt sweat just looking at them. The show took place in the brand’s new store and was so tasteful and spare and cool that the Olsen twins have surely dispatched a spy balloon over to Khaite HQ.
4 - I am a sucker for Altuzarra and while this did not strike me as Joseph Altuzarra’s strongest collection, those printed coats will stir the dead soul of a person who has never in her life imagined herself in a printed coat. Altuzarra told Vogue, “There’s a sense of everything being so fraught right now, everything you read is so based in scary real things. I wanted to counterbalance that with something that felt out of this world.” Touché!
5 - Greg from White Lotus walked in the Eckhaus Latta show. People.com determined that “he certainly killed the catwalk.” Jon Gries explained his walk to the New York Times thusly: “They said, ‘You’re walking down the streets of New York, and your mind is somewhere else.’ And I said, ‘You mean like you’re listening to headphones?’ And they said, ‘Exactly.’”
6 - If you’ve been following the shows on Instagram you’d be forgiven for having the impression that Julia Fox was in a show every single day. I don’t think she was but her NYFW activities included:
“[Taking] her style game to new heights” aka “parad[ing] through NYC in a high-rise pair of white platforms,” per PopSugar.
Defending her appearance in Alexander Wang’s show by saying in a TikTok comment, “2bfrank i love cancel culture but we do need to leave room for rehabilitation…”
Wearing a leather outfit including a horse tail and butt cutouts, prompting “Page Six” to note, “Julia Fox has never said neigh to a cheeky look.”
Wearing a denim dress with giant boob horns at the Luis De Javier show that she looked like she struggled to walk in. WWD: “Arguably, the most notable part of the dress was the two denim bull horns sticking out of the bra cups accenting the dress, which Fox held on to during her walk down the runway.” Arguably?
7 - Azealia Banks performed at the Boom Boom Room (Y2K y’all! anyone remember this 2009 Eater story “Is The Boom Boom Room Already A Bust?”) for Dion Lee’s after party, but the real headline seems to be that Malia Obama was there.
8 - Chloë Sevigny opened the Proenza Schouler show. Determining that the statement sleeves from their last NYFW show were “not us,” designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez told The Cut’s Cathy Horyn that “they focused on individual pieces based on the lifestyles and tastes of women they know, many of whom are now older and have families.” Sure. I aspire to be the sort of mom who leaves the house in a sherpa hoodie and leather maxi skirt.
9 - Gigi Hadid and Leonardo DiCaprio were apparently ships passing in the night at Casa Cipriana: “A source tells Page Six that Hadid was at the club owner’s table ‘with a bunch of models,’ but that almost as soon as she took off, DiCaprio arrived and sat with the very same models.” WOWOW.
10 - Thom Browne’s show may have been the most extravagant of the season in New York. Vogue reported that the set included a layer of fake sand on the floor, a crashed plane in the center, and planets and stars hanging from the ceiling. The inspiration was The Little Prince and the show included the expected Thom Browne plaid tailored looks, but the strongest pieces, I thought, were the opening silk dresses that represented six planets the Little Prince visited. If you want to properly take in these looks, I recommend a gander at Thom Browne’s Instagram, where the photos really bring the details to life.
10a - Thom Browne sidenote: At the end of the show, which fell on Valentine’s Day, Browne came out with what looked like a heart-shaped box of drugstore chocolates. He walked down the sandy runway and handed them to his partner, Andrew Bolton, who leads curation at the Costume Institute, and was sitting as usual next to Met Gala queen Anna Wintour. Watch the video because it was adorable.
11 - Anyone else find it oddly comforting to hear from fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone again in this Interview interview? On who matters more, editors or influencers: “The editors, because at least they’re interested in the topic that they’re writing about. A lot of the influencers are doing things in a super fly-by-night way, and there’s more to the fashion business than how many followers you have on Instagram. Louis Vuitton doesn’t wake up saying, ‘I wonder what those kids are doing.’ The business starts with great design and storytelling, and really good distribution and production. But 70% of business in the United States is still being done in brick-and-mortar stores. So if you’re selling Crocs, get a hundred influencers and have them talk about why orange is the hot new color. That makes total sense. But influencers, for me, are an end game.” There should be approximately one million indignant TikToks responding to this very quote right about now.
12 - Rodarte’s collection was shown in Williamsburg (Y2K, y’all!) and inspired by Gothic fairies. Vogue: “Four models wore bulbous shapes made entirely from metallic fringe. They were powerful and fun, and the way they caught the light as the models walked down the runway brought an element of whimsy and fantasy to the collection.” Go Fug Yourself: “Some of these are fascinating, some are BONKERS, some are just run-of-the-mill hideous. There are bonnets. Explosions of flowers. Sheers. Questionable knitwear. Prints of what I think are their mom’s commissioned fairy drawings. And, in a too-literal touch, wings.” (PS, the GFY girls have a new Substack! Check it out:
)
13 - Vogue Runway hasn’t updated its Hervé Léger page since resort 2021 which I don’t particularly understand, bandage dresses being back and all. However if you want to see the collection (and COME ON of course you do) check out the brand’s Instagram page. These peplums are not fucking around.
14 - Do Wes Gordon’s Carolina Herrera collections ever miss? I don’t think so and I don’t think he gets enough credit in the New York fashion scene, probably because he makes cheerful, earnest, brightly colored dresses instead of shearling pants and leather camisoles. It’s not how I personally dress but I always love looking at his shows.
15 - Model Taylor Stewart posted a series of vlogs to TikTok titled “New York Fashion Week Is a Scam.” She notes that “95 percent of these shows do not pay their models.” She says she has never worked for one of the “big brands” but that this is what she’s observed at “mid-level” shows, which are probably the bulk of the NYFW calendar. This is not a new problem and makes you think: if you can’t afford to pay your models, can you really afford to have a fashion show?
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16 - Speaking of women’s rights: Gloria Steinem went to the Michael Kors show, where the low-slung belts were inspired by the style she prefers. Quothe the Guardian: “Gloria Steinem may, for most people, be known as a key figure in feminism. But she is also increasingly gaining a reputation as a style icon.”
17 - And finally, Lil Nas X went to the Coach show where Vogue asked if he wants to continue dabbling in fashion design. His answer: “Of course. I definitely want to start my own line.”
2023 Shoe Watch
Shoes have led to runway carnage at Valentino in two back-to-back fashion shows. While we saw a range of footwear on the fall 2023 runways in New York, the trend is accelerating as evidenced by both the new collections and celebrities (see aforementioned Julia Fox, Beyoncé in Balmain at the Grammys, etc.). A collage that may or may not keep you up at night:
Finally, a few things happened during NYFW that weren’t NYFW but definitely competed with NYFW headlines:
Rihanna’s new British Vogue cover story is pretty great and has a lot of social media commenters back to the “ANNA COULD NEVER” narrative. It’s worth noting American Vogue did a great cover with Rihanna during her pregnancy.
Rihanna performed pregnant at the Super Bowl Halftime show, wearing flight suit-inspired Loewe and coats by Alaïa.
Pharrell was announced as the new creative director of Louis Vuitton. I published an in-depth post about this earlier this week for paid subscribers.
Barney got a makeover and if you’ve been avoiding giving clicks to sites trying to get you to click through an old photo of Barney to see it, here you go:
And on that note, I’ll be back with another one of these recaps after the London shows.
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Great post!!!