In certain circles online, New York Fashion Week is talked about as the ugly stepchild of Fashion Month. People lament its lack of tentpole shows, point out how designers tend to leave for Paris or show off-schedule, and generally dunk on mid-level contemporary brands making the same wool coats and wide-leg pants in shades of greige. To be sure: New York has a sameness problem, as the divide between multi-million-dollar brands and scrappy indie designers grows by the day. Compound this with a withering retail market and rising costs of production and the harshness of being an American designer come fully into light.
But during what was a particularly rough season for clothes and ideas, a few beacons of light brightened up a gray, windy week in the city. When reflecting back on the week with friends, a through-line emerged: rigor. The brands’ runways we enjoyed the most didn’t always have the most groundbreaking ideas, but the efficiency and clarity with which they presented proves it’s about concision and editing. Those with the sharpest vision for their labels — those who cut through the noise of new-era minimalism and rambunctiously riotous “pick-me” brands — stood out. Whether through casting, location, or production, they also proved intention beyond the clothes can take a good show and make it great. Keep reading to see what got our hearts racing from the front row.
Tory Burch
We were one of the first to call the 2020s for what they are: the Toryssiance. From outlet brand to wristlet maker to now runway darling, Burch has continued to stage coups by way of her epic catwalks. This season, Burch drew on Bunny Mellon’s idiosyncratic style and, as stated via press release, “honored what makes archetypes last while exploring technique and proportion.” Classic preppy American staples like corduroy pants, embellished cardigans, boat-neck sweaters, and wool blazers got a bit of a roomy update and punchy colors to boot. Tory also had one of the most covetable front-row spots (we spied Mary Beth Barone and Myha’la singing Dolly Parton together) and the best soundtrack of the week; we also left instantly desiring a raffia bag for fall — and the face-wrapping sunglasses, of course.
Area
What defines “good taste”? Designer Nicholas Aburn tiptoed around a bonfire composed of camp, glamour, and tacky for his second showing as the brand’s new creative director. It was a big swing, and one that paid off: The show’s production, hair, styling, and makeup gave the effect of a Parisian runway, with a modern sensibility only New York could know and love. There were polka-dot scarves flying off torsoes, screen-printed sequined separates, and sleek all-black looks with ingenious styling that felt insouciant and very right now. With enough variety and enough velvet to leave any theater impressed, the runway made it clear that decadence doesn’t have to look stuffy — it can actually be really f*cking sexy.
Michael Kors Collection
Michael Kors (the brand) turns 45 this year, and the Metropolitan Opera’s plush red lobby played host to his grandest show in recent memory. The looks were a greatest-hits roundup of what makes him tick as a New Yorker: There is no uptown, downtown, midtown, only a vision of the most stylish people across boroughs who want ease. His daywear is rich with ideas of layering and color, and his evening-wear was, yes, dramatic, but not constricting in the slightest. No crazy gowns or corsets in sight, just relaxed, pump-the-pavement ideas of glamour that feel both timeless and of the moment.
Eckhaus Latta
Ask any New Yorker below 14th Street who should be designing Calvin Klein right now, and they’ll probably answer Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus. (Cathy Horyn agreed with me this season.) The duo behind the subversively kinky and highly wearable downtown phenomenon staged yet another winner of a show this season, coming off the high of their unspeakably perfect Spring/Summer collection. It was a mix of sex, work, and play on this season’s catwalk, with desirable deconstructed denim (either with double waistbands or bulge-forward chaps), cut-out T-shirts and knits in bold patterns, and waifs of silk shirts and skirts that worked to lighten the tough, BDSM-lite load. Something for everyone, yet the level of discernment shown in their highly intentional offering (just 31 looks) prove efficiency remains king, especially for scrappy, always young-at-heart designers.
Diotima
The season’s schedule technially went until Feb. 16, but Rachel Scott of Diotima performed a mic drop by way of her show on Feb. 15. Where her Spring/Summer show was flouncy and fluorescent, her Fall/Winter show was earthy and grounded. She drew from Wilfredo Lam’s rich life as an artist and provocateur, collaborating with his estate to source and reprint his femme chaval both figuratively and literally across her richly realized clothes. Her ability to progress each season in materiality and silhouette is second-to-none; she’s clearly not content to keep a successful pattern or shape in play merely to cash in. As Scott wrote in her show notes, the personal and political have an obligation to interact with fashion: “This collection takes shape in a political and cultural moment marked by exhaustion and division, where resilience, identity and memory become acts of resistance. It is about a woman who moves through it with radiance, force, and radical self-definition. Not in spite of the times, but within them.” Scott sits at the nexus of intellect, pleasure, and desire, while also flexing her pattern-making skills, and, as a friend and stylist mentioned to me after the show, her effortful fashion can also be immediately desirable. (I personally added the striped deep-tan matching set to my fall shopping list.)