Weekend Edition #23: Is New York Fashion Week running out of runway?
Let's review!
Hi!
Every summer when it’s time to leave Wyoming, I wonder if we should stay. The wide-open land, the big blue sky, the soaring mountains, and the sparkling streams. It’s a beautiful place where my mind wanders and my soul soars. But every year we go back. To the city that never sleeps. The city of dreams. Welcome to New York.
Coincidentally, Taylor Swift’s mega song came through my headphones during the final few minutes of my last run in Wyoming. And maybe it was the altitude, but I decided I was ready to go home. You can dream big anywhere, and some would argue that you can dream especially big in that vast Wyoming landscape, but New York has always been the crystal ball for me, holding my future inside.
When I was younger, New York City was the place to be for fashion. And fashion for me meant two things.
Magazines. I poured through the pages of Vogue and InStyle and Vanity Fair and before that Glamour, and Mademoiselle and Seventeen. I’m not sure any of those magazines exist anymore except Vogue, at least not in physical form.
New York Fashion Week. Which still exists, but like the magazines, more as a title than anything else. When I moved to New York after college, the shows were still in the tents in Bryant Park. All of them. I’d leave work during lunch and lurk around the edges of 6th Avenue and 42nd Street, trying to catch a glimpse of an editor, or a model, or really anyone dressed fabulously. It was so exciting. Especially in the fall, when the energy in the air was crisp and electric.
Unfortunately, the financial crisis of 2008, the rise of social media, the pandemic, and the evolution of the retail industry all contributed to a present in which it feels like fashion has fallen out of fashion in New York. This is an industry once driven by beauty, creativity, quality, sentimentality, and desire. It is now driven by growth, margins, and real estate, and over the past couple of decades, the consumer has been trained to spend a little for a lot so that companies can report comp store sales growth and increases in stock prices. In Europe, it’s still a different ball game. Socially, economically, philosophically, artistically. Priorities are different, from the social safety net and support for artists to how people spend their money. As a result, the fashion industry has flourished in Paris, Milan, and even Copenhagen, and American brands have flocked to these cities. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen’s The Row (perhaps the most truly American fashion brand to emerge in years, with its mix of celebrity, casual luxury style, and astronomical .001% prices) will show in Paris on September 25, Rick Owens (a born-and-bred Californian) will show there the following day. While Thom Browne, the designer, will help Anna Wintour kick off Fashion Week in Rockefeller Center on September 6 (where the shows will be live-streamed to the public on big screens throughout the week - I wonder how that will go since they will also all be live-streamed on the small screens in our pockets?), Thom Browne, the brand, shows in Europe.
Fashion shows started as presentations to buyers and editors, who would then decide what they wanted to feature in their stores and the pages of their magazines the following season. (This is why Spring collections are shown in September, and Fall collections are shown in February.) Based on their buys and reviews, designers and brands would decide what to put into production. Six months later consumers would shop in stores and on newsstands and make their clothing purchases accordingly. Lower-priced mass brands would “take inspiration” from these high-end designers and editorials to make their versions to sell in another six months, then a full year since the original designer had come up with the idea. Those designers had long since moved on to new inspiration, and the cycle continued.
Now time is a flat circle and everything happens at once. Buyers, editors, influencers, and consumers see what’s going down a runway at the same time. And because fast fashion companies also see it, consumers can buy cheap versions of new ideas in weeks, not years. That leaves fashion shows to exist primarily as marketing tools for a brand, like a commercial, or really, a social media post. It’s no longer about the clothes, it’s about the content.
But there are glimmers of hope. Check out Proenza Schouler’s latest show (which actually was before the official start of NYFW), designed by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. Stripes galore! Pops of red persevere. A twist on prep! About the collection, Hernandez said:
“No one needs another black suit. What’s luring people, at least for us, is an emotional quality—like you look at that and you say, ‘that’s so amazing, I need it.’ It’s about trying to elicit an emotional response.”
That’s what fashion is all about. That’s what art is all about. That’s what life is all about. Trying to elicit an emotional response.
I love what Amy Smilovic, the founder and designer at Tibi, is doing with her company. She completely overhauled her financial model during the pandemic, eliminating many large wholesale accounts to focus on independent boutiques and her stores and website. She uses her social media in an inspiring way, speaking directly to her followers and customers about her products, vision, style, and fashion philosophy. She shows on Saturday and is taking us behind the scenes to witness how a small, truly sustainable, brand makes it work. She delivers an “ever-evolving perspective on what clothing should give us, mixing heritage and new on a foundation of a chill, modern, and classic sensibility.”
A few other faves to follow: 3.1 Phillip Lim on Sunday (I also used to use my lunch breaks to stalk his sample sales - what is a NYC lunch break if not for sample sales?), and Lafayette 148 and Tory Burch on Monday, both female-founded-and-run companies which are unfortunately still rare in this industry. (Lafayette 148 actually has its own vertically-integrated mill and factory in China, which allows them to design super-elevated fabrics and styles on par with the highest luxury brands, with minimal waste and in support of the local community.) And if you’re looking for pure spectacle because what’s life without a little of that, Tommy Hilfiger is showing on an old decommissioned Staten Island Ferry on Sunday night. Bon voyage!
Fashion is all about self-expression and creativity. Who we are. It’s about dreams and desire. Who we could be. It’s about innovation and reinvention. What might be.
I hope there is a future for Fashion with a capital F in New York City. I hope there is a future for all of us that makes us feel swathed in comfort, security, and beauty. I hope you have a great week.
x Lindsay
P.S. There are some new readers here, and I wanted to say: welcome, and thank you! It means the world to me that you’re interested in reading what I’m writing about fashion, art, and design. Here are a few of my most popular posts, if you’d like to check them out!
Really enjoyed this, thank you-love your writing style, on my very favourite topic.💕