Rebecca Minkoff Skips New York Fashion Week, Profiles Powerful Women Instead
With the birth of her third child expected during New York Fashion Week, Rebecca Minkoff will be skipping a show in favor of a new women’s empowerment platform.
Twenty inspiring women including members of the Women’s March committee and key supporters such as Gretchen Carlson, Zosia Mamet and Zanna Roberts Rassi have been photographed wearing items from the designer’s spring collection. The designer will share their stories about why they are marching, or support the march, across her social media base of two million. Still stalwart about buy now, Minkoff said, “It will all be buy now. Every profile will have a grid that you can click into to see what the woman is wearing. And it’s all available to purchase.”
Minkoff first connected with Women’s March leaders last year, when they asked if she might provide them with an unofficial uniform. She eagerly obliged with a crossbody bag, a charging tassel and boots. Looking to amplify women’s empowerment, she suggested profiling them on her site and this time they gladly returned the favor. The full RM Superwomen profiles go live Thursday and will get even more play Saturday and Sunday, when women across America take to the streets again.
Minkoff said she started hosting Superwomen dinners two years ago “to get women together to celebrate other women.” That lead to a digital presence “to get customers and the community involved,” and in-store fireside chats where Minkoff interviewed female entrepreneurs. With the Facebook group RM Superwomen up-and-running as well as an Instagram account, Minkoff aims to “tell the story as long as possible of women who are making great change for the better.”
She said, “At the end of the day, our brand is here to inspire women to lead a more fearless life. If they come away from an experience being inspired to take the next step in their career or personal life, that’s really something that’s important to me. Nothing is more important than women’s equality and women’s rights.”
Staffers will be making signs for the march Friday in the New York office and they will walk together this weekend. The company also plans to profile the stories of women’s march leaders in Las Vegas at a Jan. 21 rally. Minkoff said she has also made “a significant donation” to the Women’s March. This weekend, Minkoff plans to march in New York with MILCK, the musician behind “I Can’t Keep Quiet,” whom she found on YouTube and asked to close her Los Angeles runway show. “I’m going to march with her for as long as I can before I have a contraction,” Minkoff said.
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