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This is Connecting the Dots, a series in which writer José Criales-Unzueta looks at how fashion, pop culture, the internet and society are all interconnected.
Every season, the same grumblings occur at New York Fashion Week. It’s “not the same” without its icons of yore: Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, et al. on its runways. It’s no Paris or Milan, after all.
It’s not surprising, then, that international guest designers dropping in on the New York Fashion Week (NYFW) schedule have quickly become each season’s shiny new toys. It’s only once these visitors are announced that we hear some enthusiasm. Just in the past two years, we’ve had visits from Marni, Fendi, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and most recently, Alaïa and Off-White for this Spring/Summer 2025 season. These shows have all been exciting, and we’re always happy to host our friends from across the pond. But NYFW can’t, and does not need to, rely solely on borrowed sparkle from its sister fashion weeks from around the globe to sustain its lustre and defend its position on the fashion month calendar.
We’ve been relying on visitors to draw international editors and buyers, and hope their presence will give our week more buzz and attention. But the issue with NYFW isn’t its lack of in-house “big names” — those we have, and we’ll get to them later. Its problem is imposter syndrome, our very own homegrown low self-esteem inherited from our fashion forefathers, from way back when American manufacturers were duplicating European fashion to sell stateside. We don’t have an LVMH or a Kering; not really. It dates all the way back to the Battle of Versailles: there is a seemingly perennial obsession with seeing American fashion as less than its counterparts in Europe, and that call is coming from inside the house.
It’s as if NYFW has become the fashion embodiment of Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett’s 1952 play, in which two characters, Didi and Gogo, do nothing but reflect on their existences as they wait for someone who never comes. NYFW’s Godot is also not coming. And that, to me, is a good thing. What’s the point of rehashing New York’s past when its future is looking just as promising?
Visitors welcome
Pieter Mulier closed the first day of New York Fashion Week with a magnificent off-calendar show for Alaïa hosted at the Guggenheim Museum. Rihanna was in attendance, as were Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Edward Enninful and many other names we did not see come out again as the week progressed. Mulier’s show was, as is the consensus, one of his best yet.
Alaïa, the label, and Azzedine Alaïa, the man, have a history with New York. The designer staged a show in the city back in 1982 at Bergdorf Goodman at the behest of then-doyenne Dawn Mello. Thierry Mugler helped with the casting, and Andy Warhol photographed it. It’s that very show that helped the late couturier find enough wholesale support to launch his ready-to-wear business — it’s that very show that helped make Alaïa the maison we know today.
Mulier lived in New York during his time at Calvin Klein with Raf Simons, so this show was a homecoming for him, too. He told Vogue Runway and Vogue Business global director Nicole Phelps that he looked to American designers for inspiration, including Charles James, Claire McCardell and Halston. “I looked quite literally to some American designers that we haven’t forgotten in Europe, but that don’t really have the status of what a Dior has or a Chanel has. And for me, they’re as important as them,” Mulier said.
And they are just as significant. The thing about American fashion is that everyone else can see its value other than, it seems, ourselves. As part of this show, Alaïa also launched an exclusive New York capsule. Jonathan Anderson also descended upon New York, not for a show, but to host a dinner with Saks Fifth Avenue to launch an exclusive edit of its autumn collection. More international brands used the week to open stores and pop-ups, including Zegna, Jacquemus, Cecilie Bahnsen and more.
New York Fashion Week, after all, is the gateway to the substantial American market. If these international designers, and those who hold the purse strings at their respective labels, certainly see its value, why can’t we?
Actually, New York is back, baby
Consider what we do have at home. It would do us all some good to start showing some appreciation — show up to those shows that are a little far away, or a little late. Take the re-see, the appointment; check out the lookbook, go stand at the haphazardly put-together debut show. Write up the happenings with the same sharpness and sense of occasion we report on those who visit us. If we treat our own week like we do all the others, perhaps we can get everyone else to look at it with different eyes, too.
After all, what we have is Raul Lopez taking over the Rockefeller Plaza with Madonna in the front row (and Beyoncé last season, lest we forget). We have Willy Chavarria ascending from New York deep-cut to NYFW must-see — together, with a buzzy Adidas Originals partner, with anticipation to rival that of, say, Wales Bonner. We have Hillary Taymour’s ever-expanding green universe at Collina Strada, her show the only one no one misses on the first day of fashion week. And we have Area, the dark horse of American fashion that has shown its staying power now 10 years in business.
We also have Eckhaus Latta, which “won” NYFW, at least, according to critics like Cathy Horyn, with a buzzy-yet-intimate dinner-cum-show. And we have Diotima’s Rachel Scott, who this season presented a truly star-making collection with an emphasis on sophisticated craftsmanship to rival that of any European house focusing on a similar hands-on aesthetic.
These are my personal headliners, in addition to Tommy Hilfiger, who returned to the NYFW fold last season and is determined to continue staging shows that highlight the city’s landmarks and essence (this time his show was staged on the retired Staten Island Ferry and featured a performance by the legendary Wu-Tang Clan) and Tory Burch, whose ‘Toryssaince’ continues to gain traction. Her show, I’ve been told several times, was one of the best of the week, and it’s something I’ve been hearing every NYFW for about two years now.
The thing about New York is not only that it attracts buzzy global talent or that it is a perennial breeding ground for independent and emerging talent; it’s a city that is not just about new beginnings, but also allows for rejuvenation. Where else could designers like Burch and Hilfiger find new vigour, or could labels like Alaïa and Off-White go promote their new-found and promising second winds? I’ll echo a phrase I heard this week from everyone from my Vogue colleagues to the playwright Cole Escola — who walked their first runway show just yesterday in classic New York multi-hyphenate manner: “New York is so back, baby.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
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