New York (Fashion Week), I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down

New York Fashion Week is here. Yay. Sarcasm in italics likely expresses the mood of people who follow real fashion like football. That fashion audience, if asked to be truthful, would tell you nothing much from New York leaves an impression since Marc Jacobs’ last show with Katie Grand. You know, the Karole Armitage show. It heralded the lack of post-pandemic importance the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) applies to, in their own words, ‘strengthen the impact of American fashion globally by amplifying creative excellence, business longevity, and positive impact.’ New York designers — hell London, Japanese and Parisian designers too — are growing vocal about the need for improving investment from their respective fashion councils. This creates the paradox of a fashion capital with limited fashion significance. Yet here we are again, closing our eyes to reality while deluding ourselves another round of American shows will turn customers away from Shein and Temu apps, Lululemon lycra and slides masquerading as shoes. Let’s ride out this 07-era LCD Soundsystem wave for an overview on what’s to come from New York’s S/S 25 salvo.

Like a rat in a cage, pulling minimum wage

The 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Melitta Baumeister will close NYFW with her first catwalk show since VFiles ten years ago. Alongside her creative partner Michal Plata, they are a fashion engine of two. Melitta Baumeister constantly push a black boulder uphill in belief against a system that thinks their clothing is much too wacky to succeed. Melitta Baumeister’s authentic, elegant, idiosyncratic garments have pulled Rei Kawakubo and Bergdorf Goodman into their orbit. Her clothes sell to real customers not influencers. This season, Baumeister places her radical positivity into the ‘body as a vehicle for movement.’ An avid cyclist with her partner Plata, Baumeister looks to disprove assumptions that her clothes ridicule the body rather than validate real style. If S/S 25 is successful at retail, maybe Melitta can afford another pattern cutter. She really does it all herself. Good thing she bikes daily. While designing most collections solo takes a toll, it sharpens your resolve. No wonder the CFDA opened their eyes.

Our records all show you were filthy but fine

Willy Chavarria ends day one of NYFW with a runway show titled América. Chavarria is on a hot streak after winning the CFDA 2023 American Menswear Designer of the Year. He followed that up in February by turning a fashion film into a live fashion show via Safe From Harm. Dirty thoughts from DIRTY WILLY UNDERWEAR have been emanating from the house of Chavarria too. He just restocked the webstore since all styles sold out. Clearly the WC’s formula is working. His voice mixes the sacred with the profane in clothes, in casting and sincere consideration for a gentler humanity. If you combine the NBA icon Kobe Bryant’s latter-stage epiphanies with Marc Jacobs’ unselfishness, you can understand why a Willy Chavarria show matters. He gives a lot of himself to his audience. He also represents a hopeful American fashion success story. Since we don't have many recent examples left, we love on Willy quite often.

There’s a ton of the twist, but we’re fresh out of shout

Elena Velez and Batsheva Hay are two strident minds in the New York fashion scene. Their collections have been worn by Erykah Badu, Teyana Taylor, Taylor Swift Ethel Cain and Natalie Portman. Hay had no formal design training when she started Batsheva. Velez went to Parsons, then Central Saint Martins and is a 2024 LVMH Prize semifinalist. She does not suffer fools. Neither does Hay.

These rapidly dwindling New York designer voices that celebrate the vastly complex, beautiful nuances of female intelligence need protecting. As each lumbers through impatient publicists and journalists who would rather mute them than reconsider their own limiting assumptions about fashion designers, let’s try to embrace multi-layered ideas around sex, class and society instead.

Like a death of the heart, Jesus, where do I start?/But you're still the one pool where I'd happily drown

Alaïa returns to New York for the first time since the 1985 Palladium show. New York seems at its most exciting when Europeans decide to show up and show out. Helmut Lang redefined the fashion calendar there. Nicolas Ghésquiere edited the Bible on renovating old fashion houses when he showed Balenciaga twice. Lanvin's excellent new design honcho Peter Copping channeled Lacroix in De La Renta during his time in New York. Perhaps Ghésquiere’s last Balenciaga show in New York is the best transition into Alaïa to stress importance. His A/W 03 seems like a good focus with all those Alaïa-isms emanating from hard Cristobal outerwear architecture. Azzedine Alaïa corsetry laced onto Roos van Bosstraeten. Azzedine Alaïa endlessly sculptural tailoring clinging around Mariacarla Boscono. Azzedine Alaïa starlets-as-besties with Chloë Sevigny and Asia Argento in the audience supporting Ghésquiere.

When Alaïa last presented in New York, Jean-Paul Goude (Grace Jones' graphic designer partner) designed his set. Ian Schrager, legendary founder of Studio 54, financed the show. Michael and Tina Chow of iconic restaurant chain Mr Chow was in the audience. And models, real-deal models, walked amongst actresses: Andie MacDowell, Linda Spierings, Joan Severance, Iman, Yasmin LeBon, Janice Dickinson. This is a primal example of magic notoriety that New York’s cultural allure provides at its best. Let’s hope Pieter Mulier can transfuse his Alaïa qualities of love, sex and magic across continents to liven up NYFW. And if he can’t, the Amsterdam dynamo Ronald van der Kemp’s ravishing womenswear makes a stateside pop-up next Wednesday morning.

And, oh! Maybe mother told you true/And there'll always be somebody there for you/And you'll never be alone

The fashion may often be dry, but New York always rains down entertainment. Chitose Abe of Sacai made a flight plan to organise two events this season. The first is a polite cocktail at Bergdorf Goodman to celebrate Bill Cunningham and Mark Bozek’s new book titled The Battle of Versailles: The Fashion Showdown of 1973. Sacai released a capsule of core basics with Bill Cunningham's trademark quote: Fashion Is The Armor To Survive The Reality Of Everyday Life. This guide to life underpins The Battle of Versailles, a catty battle between European and American designers including Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Hubert de Givenchy against Stephen Burrows, Halston and Bill Blass. Imagine a time when American fashion was thought to be on par with European fashion…

One day later Chitose Abe takes Sacai into convivial rebellion at Dover Street Market NY for Gonz and Sacai: Wher Thier Is Love Tencion Subsides. The Sacai collaboration with downtown legend, the skateboarding artist Mark Gonzales was a stand-out aspect from a stand-out A/W 24 collection. Gonzales used freestyle skateboarding’s spontaneous spirit to animate school uniform crest patches with Gonzales’ odd-but-wonderful drawings. These were appliquéd onto Americana outerwear archetypes for good vibes throughout the collection. The Bronx cultural food collective Ghetto Gastro is catering the event! Rocky’s Matcha plans to come through with Hojicha! Mark Gonzales represents New York’s DIY, graffiti, skate, zines with Harmony Korine-type history. Much more of this alchemical waltzing with the past to inform an elevated zeitgeist could put NYFW on a path to relevancy. Until then we sit gloomily by, waiting for the CFDA to tangibly invest in talents like Kozaburo Akasaka, Melitta Baumeister, Olivia Cheng, Shayne Oliver and Chris Peters’ CDLM. Who knows...

But maybe she's wrong

And maybe I'm right

And just maybe she's wrong

Maybe she's wrong

And maybe I'm right