Back in the New York Groove
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On a bright Sunday morning, the sky that perfect shade of robin’s-egg blue New York shows off in early September, SoHo residents watched from their fire escapes as models Sherry Shi, Imaan Hammam, Kate Upton, Liya Kebede, and Adut Akech led a procession past Tory Burch’s new flagship on Mercer Street. They had some of the best seats in the house for the designer’s Spring 2022 show—part of the first in-person New York Fashion Week (NYFW) in 18 months. Afterward, everyone was invited to fill reusable net market bags with goodies from beloved local shops including Vesuvio Bakery and McNally Jackson while sipping iced matcha lattes on tap from Maman. “Presenting outside allowed us to do things differently,” says Burch. “The entire street was the runway, and the city was the backdrop.” It was a fitting setting for Burch’s collection—an assortment of casually elegant, easy-to-move-in maxi dresses in humble madras, picnic plaids, and cotton poplins that paid homage to pioneering American sportswear designer Claire McCardell.
Throughout the week, many shows captured that same American sense of pragmatism and self-expression, mixed with that uniquely New York hustle: a constant forward-moving drive. With the city almost fully reopen, there was a palpable sense that New Yorkers had banded together to help one another through an incredibly difficult period, restoring the title “The City That Never Sleeps.” Designers presented their collections with a renewed spirit, inspired by the resilience of their city. Many showed outdoors, interpreting CDC guidance on safer gatherings as an assignment to present their collections in some of the city’s most epic plein air locations, from the banks of the Hudson River to Central Park. With few international buyers and press in attendance due to ongoing travel restrictions, the week felt like an unabashed celebration of New York fashion for New Yorkers.
For his big Spring 2022 return, Michael Kors chose a place that has long brought people together: the landmark Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. “It is a spot that has hosted so many romantic moments for so many people around the world,” Kors explains. “Everything from weddings, special birthdays, special anniversaries, reunions, christenings, bar mitzvahs—the list goes on. This restaurant, to me, is sort of hallowed ground for celebrating with friends and family.” His Michael Kors Collection show, outdoors on the terrace, featured a stellar cast, including Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, clad in minimalist-chic black sequined gowns suitable for many such occasions.
Like Kors, who says he was inspired by “the idea of nature in the middle of the greatest city in the world,” many designers emphasized the vital importance of urban green spaces for moments of peace and connection during the pandemic—and beyond. “It was an oasis for myself and my family during this last chapter,” says Ulla Johnson of her venue, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where birdsong provided grace notes to the live string-quartet accompaniment. There was a quiet confidence to Johnson’s tailored silhouettes, which featured hand-tied shibori sunbursts and looked like they could easily glide from the park to the boardroom. “We wanted a collection that would feel like a breath of fresh air,” says Rodarte codesigner Laura Mulleavy of a lineup shown in the courtyard of Westbeth Artists Housing in the West Village that featured more easy draped dresses than the brand’s signature ethereal fairy-tale gowns. “In many ways, the collection was about movement,” adds codesigner Kate Mulleavy.
At Coach, a skate crew brought youthful energy to reimagined houndstooth and plaid anoraks, originally designed by the label’s first lead designer, Bonnie Cashin, in the 1960s. The show was staged on the Hudson River at Pier 76, a former tow pound that was converted to public open space this past summer. “I really wanted it to feel like a love letter to New York,” says the brand’s creative director, Stuart Vevers. Further down Hudson River Park’s four-mile greenway, Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez packed a full house at Little Island’s 687-seat amphitheater for their twilight presentation of return-to-commuting suiting, which came in relaxed cuts and vivid shades of orange and saffron. “In addition to the traditional press and buying audience, we invited community groups from around New York, including fashion students, and even visitors to Little Island who may or may not have known what was happening,” says McCollough. “It was definitely the biggest show we have ever had, and it felt so great to be able to share that moment with the public,” adds Hernandez.
Several major American brands that had previously decamped for Paris Fashion Week came back across the pond. “I spent all of lockdown in New York, and I have an intense feeling of solidarity with this city and community,” says Joseph Altuzarra, who showed in New York for the first time in four years. “I desperately wanted to be part of the effort to reinvigorate New York, and coming back to show here was a first step.”
Thom Browne attributes his return, after a similar hiatus, to his desire to support his curator partner, Andrew Bolton, whose new exhibit, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute just after NYFW. “I am always proud to celebrate the importance of American design and show the world that there is true and pure creativity here,” Browne says. His show featured an enchanted garden set, models as statues, and horse-headed cyclists on vintage high-wheelers. The clothes, though, when you pulled the looks apart, were in keeping with the classic tailored separates Browne does best. Gabriela Hearst came back too, with a collection that paid tribute to craft traditions from the Americas and featured Indigenous model Quannah Chasinghorse, who opened and closed the show. “What was very special and personal to me was that it was the first time we were using craft from all the Americas: We worked with two nonprofits for our knitwear, Manos del Uruguay and Madres & Artesanas Tex from Bolivia, and we also partnered with weavers in the Navajo Nation,” says the Uruguayan American designer. And Jeremy Scott, the L.A.-based designer of Italian label Moschino, offered a nostalgia trip by bringing the fashion pack to Bryant Park, NYFW’s former longtime venue.
It felt lucky, important, and very special to be in the room with real humans—as opposed to doing video feeds—for our 20th anniversary,” says Rachel Comey of the fashion-show-cum-performance-piece she staged with choreographer Beth Gill, with movements that mimicked pedestrian street traffic and the clothes to suit that bustling pace. The mood was celebratory at Carolina Herrera, where creative director Wes Gordon marked the house’s 40th anniversary with exuberant ball gowns ready for the revitalized gala circuit. “Sitting for 10 minutes completely immersed in a collection’s storytelling is magical and unforgettable,” Gordon says.
One of the particular pleasures of NYFW is experiencing all of the exciting emerging talent firsthand. The runway debut by 2020 LVMH Prize co-winner Peter Do, one of the most anticipated shows of the week, did not disappoint. He showed ribbed-knit silk dresses with big functional pockets over trousers at a drive-in movie theater in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the Empire State Building twinkling majestically in the distance across the East River. Aaron Potts, who debuted his fluid—in terms of gender as well as silhouettes—collection A. Potts digitally during the pandemic, was thrilled to finally be able to show in person. “I hope it gives people this sense of joy, which is what I get from it,” Potts says. “We could use it, right?” Adam Lippes was even more excited about his sophomore runway effort than his first show in February 2020. “I spent the pandemic thankful that we had that one show, pretty sure it was to be our first and last,” Lippes says. “So being able to hold a show again was quite emotional.”
“I really felt like this Fashion Week was an opportunity to reconnect with our community and be present,” says Collina Strada designer Hillary Taymour, who showed her rose-petal “sylk” dresses at Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm with sweeping views of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan. And with Catherine Holstein’s Khaite booking more top models than many more-established brands did, there was a sense that a new guard had truly arrived.
On the street outside of Eckhaus Latta’s usual show space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta’s wonderful accordion knits donned by models of all ages, sizes, and genders evinced a new wearability. Vaquera designers Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee staged a standing show in Cortlandt Alley, the gritty downtown backstreet seen in many movies, with the models doing the signature Vaquera overexaggerated hustle-walk in practical outerwear and skirts composed entirely of fringe. “We love it because it is almost a caricature of an alley: hyperreal, cinematic, cheesy,” says Taubensee. “It becomes symbolic of something larger, like New York itself.”
This article originally appeared in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Harper's BAZAAR, available on newsstands December 7.
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