Has NYC ‘lost its fashion luster’? With future of NYFW under ‘threat,’ here’s what to look forward to this week
Is New York Fashion Week so last season?
Well, a new report says that burgeoning costs, a shrinking style sector and low enrollment in local design schools are threatening to topple Gotham as the global fashion hub.
Published on Wednesday, two days ahead of NYFW’s opening day, the study from the nonprofit Partnership for New York City details the hardships plaguing the city’s garment biz, which saw a loss of more than 50,000 jobs — a 30% decrease — over the past decade, and declares that the Big Apple “has lost a bit of its fashion luster.”
“The fashion industry has been declining for years, but it is an important industry to maintain in New York City,” media executive Eric Gertler, who previously worked in economic development at both city and state levels, told The City.
“It’s not just about nostalgia. It’s part of the fabric of the city, pun intended, and adds to the dynamism of New York.”
Fashion insiders have indeed expressed concern that the sparkle has faded. GQ declared NYFW dead, while Vogue said those who believe it’s “over are simply not going to the right shows.”
“NYFW isn’t dead; it’s just experiencing an expected vibe shift,” Teen Vogue hopefully reported last year.
Legendary fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone told The Post that NYFW isn’t dead or dying, but just as styles do, Fashion Week moves in cycles.
“It’s a really wavy business, the fashion business,” said the founder of p.r. shop People’s Revolution. “Sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down.”
“Pray for Seventh Avenue,” she added.
Haute mess
The new study noted that students pursuing fashion degrees at the Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute and Fashion Institute of Technology decreased by nearly one-third from 2016 to 2022, and emerging designers have been pushed out by the rising cost of doing business, shelling out as much as $125,000 to $300,000 to show at Fashion Week.
Plus, NYFW has no centralized location — gone are the days of editors huddled in the front row at the Tents at Bryant Park or even the Mercedes-Benz-sponsored home at Lincoln Center. Events are now scattered across the metropolis. While that’s allowed labels with big budgets to get creative with where and how their work is presented, it’s a logistical obstacle course for new designers, who rely on the attendance of buyers, editors and investors.
“During my reign, everybody knew in New York it was Fashion Week,” Fern Mallis, the former Council of Fashion Designers of America head, told The Post. “You couldn’t go anywhere and not know Fashion Week was happening. The energy and excitement, banners on streets everywhere — it was palpable.”
“I doubt now that a lot of people in New York have a clue that it’s Fashion Week,” she said.
The study also blames the proliferation of fast fashion and the popularity of e-commerce: Production doesn’t take place in cities, and online retailers encroach on brick-and-mortars’ market share. Department stores like Barneys, which closed its doors permanently in 2020, thrust up-and-coming creatives into the limelight. Their shuttering has further limited opportunities for designers to be discovered.
“Who knew Barneys was so important,” Partnership for New York City president Kathryn Wylde told The City.
Then there’s the issue of extra bodies — in addition to A-listers receiving VIP treatment, social media influencers are now vying for front-row seats.
“You have a whole bunch of kids who think they work in the fashion business and they’re influencers because they, I don’t know, wear Maybelline mascara,” said Cutrone, who carefully vets the influencers she allows into shows, if any. “Well, what do you know about fashion?”
Mallis said the inventions of the iPhone and social media have “changed the name of the game,” so that “shows now are for influencers.”
“Now everybody’s just doing a show for an Instagram moment,” she said. “So nobody really cares what the big editors and reporters say about a collection, because they all have already seen it.”
Best foot forward
But, the show goes on. This season — which officially kicks off Friday with a runway from Area — has shows on the docket as far away as the Hamptons, where Ralph Lauren showed Thursday. Meanwhile, Tory Burch’s Sunday catwalk will be hosted in the Domino Sugar factory along the East River in Brooklyn, and Tommy Hilfiger’s show on Sunday evening is aboard the decommissioned MV John F. Kennedy ferry, docked at Pier 17 in the Seaport.
The CFDA, which owns and operates NYFW, has maintained that the biannual event is a “cultural cornerstone of the city.”
This year, the CFDA partnered with Rockefeller Center to stream 40 of the week’s catwalks at 30 Rock’s skating rink, “giving New Yorkers and visitors a front-row seat to the creativity and innovation of American fashion,” Steven Kolb, the council’s CEO, said in a statement.
The shows, which are usually invite-only and closed off to the general public, will be made available for viewing via the livestream. EB Kelly, the senior managing director of Tishman Speyer and the head of Rockefeller Center, called the stream “the global epicenter of New York Fashion Week.”
However, the Partnership study suggested a complete overhaul of NYFW — such as hosting events at the same location, involving the city’s rich history and expanding accessibility for a wider reach.
“Most of the people from the industry still believe in New York and believe that we are the center of innovation in fashion,” said Wylde. “The question is how do we keep it that way.”
What to watch
Despite the report’s warnings of a waning fashion hub, CFDA has a stacked schedule this season, with Beyoncé-beloved Luar, innovator Christian Cowan and NYC legacy brands like Coachon the docket.
Among a cohort of New York’s own, Proenza Schouler did an early presentation Wednesday of its 2025 spring ready-to-wear collection, which is brimming with stripes, bold buttons and fringe. Some fashion houses are traveling from overseas to show in the Big Apple for the very first time.
This season is a first for Off-White, which is holding a catwalk in New York three years after the death of the Milan-based brand’s founder, Virgil Abloh. This, creative director Ib Kamara told Vogue, “has been in the cards for so long.”
“Now the time feels right to show up,” he said. “It feels natural to grow and show where so much of the community around the brand is. I think it will be amazing and feel great for Off-White to show for the first time in the city.”
Meanwhile, Frolov, the brand to watch this season, will also present a collection at NYFW on Sunday for the first time.
“New York, it’s the right point to present our collection, to present our brand, and to build this bridge between Ukraine in the war and all people in the world,” Kyiv-based creative director Ivan Frolov, who has created ensembles for Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue and Jennifer Lopez, told The Post.
His designs recently became a viral spectacle thanks to pop sensation Sabrina Carpenter, who he says “was like magic” to work with. Her concert corsets — with a cutout heart in the center of the bodice — have become her hallmark style, inspiring superfans to DIY the garment.
“I think each big designer has something. For example, Yves Saint Laurent, his famous dress, or the little black dress by Chanel,” he said, calling fans’ re-creations “inspiring” and “the next level of brand identity.”
“[I’m] proud that people love this dress so much that they decided to make a copy.”
And, after a blockbuster rooftop show last year, socialite Anna Delvey — under the umbrella of her firm the Outlaw Agency, co-founded with Cutrone to help emerging designers — will be producing a three-show lineup in Chelsea now that her house arrest conditions have loosened, allowing her to travel outside the confines of her home.
This year, instead of a precarious Lower East Side terrace, the Pornhub-sponsored shows for the brands Private Policy, Untitled Co. and Shao will be hosted in the Altman Building to close out Fashion Week on Sept. 11.
And while Cutrone doesn’t see NYFW as “the most important fashion week in the world” — that would be Paris, she noted — the Big Apple’s presentations still deserve a world stage.
“It’s been a city of energy,” she said, “and of expression.”
