As usual: Jason Wu showed minimalist fashion at New York Fashion Week. (Image: Getty Images)
With Marc Jacobs, The Row and Proenza Schouler, some of the most important names in American fashion were missing from the New York Fashion Week calendar. In any case, the statement made with the winners of the CFDA Awards was more important than the new collections.
It’s not like New York Fashion Week didn’t have enough problems before the pandemic. The American fashion week was repeatedly accused of hardly producing any exciting talent, and some of the big names had also declined in the strength and innovation of their designs. Even someone like Marc Jacobs seemed, in this bad light, to be tainted by old principles. Other big names like Tom Ford had moved to other cities (in his case Los Angeles) to show their collections.
Low expectations
The pandemic situation hits New York Fashion Week and thus the American fashion world even harder than other Fashion Weeks. On top of that, the CFDA, the association of the American fashion industry, which also looks after the NYFW, has only a thin digital structure. The pandemic also acted like a fire accelerator here, clearly highlighting the problems. This can now also be seen in the collections that were presented for spring / summer.
Expectations of the upcoming New York Fashion Week were low anyway due to the problems mentioned, and let’s put it this way: these expectations were hardly exceeded or surprised at all. We didn’t see any really exciting or innovative digital productions, especially since many of the big names such as Marc Jacobs, The Row or Proenza Schouler refrained from presenting a new collection in this context. And many of the younger names that embodied the hope for a new American fashion world in recent seasons – such as Vaquera, Laquan Smith or Pyer Moss – were also missing.
Inclusivity and sporty aesthetics
Exactly one of these up-and-coming labels convinced with a moving staging, namely Chromat: For the brand of designer Becca McCharen-Tran, inclusivity in their designs has been the most important maxim from the beginning. Her fashion is made for people of different body shapes and gender identities; that brings them together with a mostly explicitly sporty aesthetic.
In the usual manner, which is currently in great demand, the designer showed a film as part of New York Fashion Week that deals with the problems in the world of sport that transgender athletes face. The athlete Andraya Yearwood spoke in the film, and she and other protagonists also presented the new Chromat collection, which was created in collaboration with Reebok.
As if the world hadn’t turned any further
It is these isolated projects that stand out in the fashion world of New York and are able to move – but there are too few of them. At the same time, however, they are the only thing that seems to feel right right now in these times, and especially in the US – a few weeks before the election that will decide the fate of the nation. Another example of this came from the still young designer Kenneth Nicholson, who showed a very personal short film that addressed topics such as definitions of masculinity and the importance of the artistic in everyday life. Very poetic, and a film that clearly shows how political the private sphere in the USA is right now.
Otherwise, the event looked more as if the creatives were between a state of shock and a cautious wait to see what the world will bring with it tomorrow. It’s a shame because this moment would be important and could also be aesthetically exciting as a result, with all its challenges and question marks. Instead: A shallow optimism that flows into expected collections that were presented in equally expected lookbooks. Jason Wu is minimalist, Tom Ford is sexy and Seventies-inspired, Marchesa is romantic, Anna Sui is hippiesque. As if the world hadn’t changed any further.
Khaite designer Catherine Holstein attempted to use digital technology in a new way. She sent boxes with fabric samples and other examples from her collection to a hundred editors and buyers and brought that together with an “augmented reality” experience in which the selected people were asked to scan over things, for example, and then see all the designs. An attempt, at least, and innovative – but it doesn’t really feel like more than a temporary solution for this year.
With an important statement
In this respect, what happened during the fashion week apart from the new collections is more exciting: On the one hand, the presentation of the CFDA Awards, the winners of which were more diverse than seldom before. With Kerby Jean-Raymond and his label Pyer Moss in the category “Menswear Designer of the year”, with Telfar Clemens in the category “Accessories Designer of the year” and with Christopher John Rogers in the category “American emerging talent” three black ones won Men the important categories of the “Fashion Oscars” – an obvious sign this year, which is under the sign of the “Black Lives Matter” protests.
On the other hand, the “Harlem’s Fashion Row” awards and events took place for the 13th time – and for the first time as part of New York Fashion Week -, of course also digitally. These have always been a platform for New York black designers who were neglected by the traditional fashion week calendar. “Black Is the New Black” was the theme of the digital event this time. A clear indication that black creatives have always been important and influential – but that they just never got the right recognition. And that was probably the clearest and most important statement in this strange fashion week.
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