In Spades

Every year I take a look back and think about all of the amazing experiences I’ve had because of In Spades.  NYFW, is of course, at the top of my list.  Since I started attending over 5 years ago, the landscape has certainly changed.

While fashion month has come and gone, the February shows encompassed something different.  The emotions were more real, more raw.  Perhaps it was Karl Lagerfeld’s passing.  Perhaps it was an epiphany of the changes I’ve seen coming to the surface.  Whatever the case, one thing is certain.  The fashion week I once knew and loved is gone.  Make way for the new normal.

What exactly has changed about NYFW over the past 5 years?

My first NYFW: I carried this same handbag every day.  Now, I would never pack just one handbag!  

The NYFW Business Model

It’s no secret that the NYFW model is dying.  Or is it already dead?

While the popularity of attending NYFW has skyrocketed, the way consumers shop has completely moved away from how NYFW is presented.  Watching a runway show of clothes that won’t be available to purchase for 6 months makes sense to buyers and editors, but not to consumers.  Why do they have to wait?

Runway shows are expensive.  And when they’re instantaneously streamed to millions of viewers it opens up the possibility that those designs will be copied and sold months before the Real McCoy even hits stores.

Not only does this devalue brands’ creative property, but it causes trends to rise and fall at extremely rapid rates.  Zara can turn around a Balenciaga runway item in 3 weeks.  Three weeks!  Designers can’t compete with these fast fashion rates, so the reason NYFW exists in the first place is undermined.

To combat this, designers have done everything from “see now, buy now” collections (what you see on the runway is available for immediate purchase) to doing their own thing entirely.  Alexander Wang famously pulled out of NYFW years ago in favor of his own event at a time and place of his choosing.

So what’s the answer for keeping NYFW relevant?

Boston Consulting Group analyzed the NYFW Business Model and concluded that it’s broken.  A new solution needs to be implemented, but that answer remains to be seen.  While designers test different theories, those attending fashion week must prepare to juke and jive.

Case in point: if you’ve ever wanted to attend NYFW, now is the time to go.  Who knows what the future will hold?  NYFW could end entirely.

 The good old days: A look inside the tents at Lincoln Center

Etiquette Got Ugly

The first time I attended NYFW I was SO nervous.  Not only did I want to look the part, but I wanted to make sure I acted the part too.  This meant maintaining the highest level of professionalism at all times.  Sitting front row when I was given a Standing ticket was out of the question.  Rudely shoving my cell phone in front of someone’s view to snap a photo was unthinkable.  Now?  It’s the norm.  Is SO MUCH the norm that thinking about it any other way seems like a foggy, distant dream.

The first time I sat front row (second from the end).  The PR team pulled me from the Standing section

When I first started attending, it wasn’t new to see a blogger attending fashion week.  But the privilege was only the norm for top blogging A-listers.  It was practically unheard of for a “normal blogger” (ahem, a D-lister like myself) to attend the shows.  So you better believe I worked as hard as I could to prove to the designers and PR firms that they made the right decision taking a chance on me.  I documented.  Wrote reviews.  Shared runway images on social media.

The funny thing is that so many of my followers had no idea I covered NYFW in those early years.  They’d skip right over my runway posts and delete my update emails!  Why?  Because I never showed myself in the coverage.  It was truly about the designers and their collections.

If you don’t ‘Gram yourself doing it, did it ever really happen?

The first OOTD photo I ever posted during NYFW.  I didn’t show myself in photos until 2.5 years into covering the shows!

Now bloggers that attend NYFW don’t even attend NYFW.  They fly into NY, stay at an Instagrammable hotel, hire a photographer to shoot OOTD photos outside the main venue and brag to their followers they’re “taking meetings”.  It’s all about them.

As my friend Dawn once said, “attending NYFW without seeing the shows is like going to a concert and not bothering to watch the band”.  What’s the point?

Perhaps our FOMO culture has gotten so out of hand it’s morphed into something else entirely.  I get it.  We all want to feel part of something.  But if you don’t LOVE this industry, if you don’t revere this industry, then please don’t take up space and create unwanted noise.  If you have no intention of sharing this coverage, distilling trends for your readers or providing any other sort of education, then please – get out of the fashion kitchen.

At the end of the day, this is a business.  If your only business is your own personal brand collaborations, great.  But do it somewhere else.

Now there are so many posers attending, NYFW has taken on a new meaning.  OG fashion bloggers are opting to stay home.  Sea of Shoes hasn’t attended in years, Damsel in Dior openly questioned if she should skip a season (well before baby), and the Brooklyn Blonde admitted to taking a step back.

I too am rethinking my coverage.  I’ve slowly taken a step back the past couple of years by only attending the shows I really want to see.  It’s no longer imperative I attend 5 full days.  My goals are shifting.  Next up: international fashion weeks.

Street Style

OG NYFW Street Style – we snapped Tommy Lei before I knew who he was

There was once a time when people with impeccable style were photographed on the street.  To think!

Since the death of Bill Cunningham, I dare say this is a lost art.  When I first attended NYFW, the street style was insane.  People truly came out in their finery, styled in ways that were ingenious, shocking and innovative.

Now?

Designers send yet-to-be-released clothes to bloggers and the fashion elite and they wear said clothing to said designer’s show.  There is no mixing of brands, high street and luxury, vintage and of-the-moment.  It’s a total PR stunt with literally NO STYLING.  Yes, the people wearing these clothes got to choose between a handful of options (thus “styling” themselves), but nothing about what they put together was truly the result of their styling prowess.  It’s just a walking billboard for the brand.  It’s a business deal.

While the above has always been done, it was done in limited quantities.  Today?  The floodgates hath opened.  I wouldn’t mind this, save for the fact that the only images that end up in print, online and in social media are the ones of people who didn’t style themselves.  If the media and photographers would actually commit to covering real people who put things together on their own – they’re still out there and they’re FABULOUS – we’d have true street style again.

Update: I’m pleased to say that as of this season, more and more publications went back to covering “real” people.  Yes, there were still plenty of shots of the fashion elite thrown in, but I finally saw the pendulum start to swing back in the right direction.  Case in point: this coverage and these photos.

Moral of the Story

My first season.  Same handbag all week and repeat shoes – hah!

I’m so grateful that I got to attend NYFW before it became a thing.  I will forever cherish those memories checking in with PR before a show and being a part of the “publications” category instead of the “influencers” category.

I miss the no-frills black tents of Lincoln Center.  The neck craning tourists congregating at fashion week’s entrance hoping to get a glimpse of someone famous.  Sitting next to journalists who pulled out pads of paper to take notes before the lights of the runway dimmed.

And just like fashion teaches us, this experience will forever be about briefly looking back and then surging forward.  Fare forward, fashion voyagers.

The start of my professional relationships in NY.  Meeting Nu Evolution Founders Nadine and Sandra