With advertisements everywhere, from sidewalks to subway stations, New York Fashion Week took not only the city, but also the world by storm this year. The biggest names in fashion took to the runway to show off their spring collections, and we saw it all, from leather to lace, ballet flats to platforms. These shows revealed the ins and outs of this upcoming season’s fashion, and the clothes we can predict to be seeing this year.
One of the biggest trends on runways this fashion week was lace. Almost every collection had a look in which it was involved. Michael Kors’ line combined lace with leather and metallic accessories, contrasting this delicate material with timeless accessories. The idea of a “timeless wardrobe” was endlessly present throughout the shows, as designers utilized timeless pieces like business-appropriate clothing, neutral color schemes and everyday staple jewelry with a modern twist in order to create the essence of spring fashion this year. Modern elements such as color blocking, floral textures and unconventional shaping were large part in making the designs really stand out.
My favorite collection was the Anna Sui spring line. The designs combined modern elements with classic ones such as tweed or the classic and colorful patterns inspired by ’60s fashion. The show reinvented designs from those of the past and showed Sui’s ability to combine vintage designs with modern ideas.
Although the Miu Miu show represented modern trends and ready-to-wear style, the show was definitely more on the disappointing side for me. Many designs for the collection left me asking myself if they were even different from last year’s show. Although the brand centers around its business casual style, nothing really stood out to me while watching. The same pieces were worn over and over, and the repetition of these styles from previous collections didn’t give us anything new.
There were many new trends and ideas throughout the week, which I think will remain popular throughout the rest of the month, including sheer-everything, ruffles, bows, metallics and drop waists. Overall, the week truly displayed a new era in fashion for the upcoming year. Even walking up and down the streets of New York, I saw these trends off the runway and in the context of casual street style.
Fashion week is not only the place where designers are able to showcase their looks on the runway, but they are also able to show them off the runway as well. Pre-show red carpet events are the perfect place for designers to style our favorite celebrities in their new designs. It’s no surprise that we have not seen many actors and actresses in red carpets preceding fashion week as the SAG-AFTRA strikes continue, pushing back movie release dates and press tours. Instead of seeing these stars at movie premieres, we have seen many of them at fashion week events. At the Kors show we saw Blake Lively, Tiffany Haddish, Ellen Pompeo and Olivia Wilde. Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner were seen at the Haider Ackermann show; Chalamet is currently supposed to be on the “Dune: Part Two” press release tour alongside Zendaya, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh, but strikes have pushed the movie’s release date to next year.
Many are questioning whether fashion week is these actors’ “replacement red carpet” as a way to keep their names in headlines. Even SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher was put under fire for attending Dolce and Gabbana’s Alta Moda celebration in Italy, even though she said it was an agreement made in the past by contract. In the past, actors such as Pugh publicly made comments in support of the strike, but Pugh was also in attendance at previous fashion week events in Paris. There is a fear that celebrities will appear insensitive whilst attending these events. PR expert Lucien Pagés thinks that New York Fashion Week was a “test” by actors to see if they will or will not receive backlash for attending events. If they do not, Pagés presumes they will attend upcoming fashion weeks in even larger numbers.
New York Fashion Week was a great success this year for the fashion industry. New concepts were brought to life by designers, photographers, videographers and models who brought the events to life. NYFW successfully created a lively atmosphere in fashion, which will hopefully continue into London Fashion Week, Sept. 15 through Sept. 19.
