Image via Complex Original
The biannual brand synergy and air kissing convention colloquially known as “New York Fashion Week” has officially begun, complete with new venues and a new visual identity for which someone surely overpaid.
Now liberated from both the unseemly slum of Lincoln Center, the Fashion™ flock will settle into Skylight Moynihan Station—a far tonier miasma of construction being transformed into a future Amtrak hub, and Skylight Clarkson Square—which famously hosted Kanye West's Yeezy Season 1 show, on an industrial stretch on the far western reaches of SoHo, or South West Village, or Upper TriBeCa. No one really knows how to describe this part of town except Rick Owens, who calls it “homey.” New York Fashion Week: Men’s got the jump here this summer, so by now the complaints should be finely polished. Inside Tip: Both of these spaces are called “Skylight,” so to display your NYFW bonafides, simply refer to them in the same way, with a heavy sigh.
The spring shows exist now mostly as a short interlude of commerce between fashion’s true love: sweating in Queens while pretending to understand tennis. Which means unless you wish to be laughed out of the city, immediately busting out to the U.S. Open on the 7 is of foremost importance.
What to See:
Givenchy, in what is being billed as an "act of goodwill" and definitely not a marketing tie-in to the opening of their Madison Avenue store, showed their collection on September 11, in a somber, respectful show done in collaboration with artist Marina Abramovic. Riccardo Tisci, the man responsible for knee-high Air Force 1s, is calling it “a celebration of family and love.” Do you think anyone has ever told Riccardo “No”? If you weren’t granted one of the golden tickets, you can still do your part to keep Fashion Local and support downtown commerce by picking up a convincing rottweiler T-shirt on Canal Street.
While Givenchy will undoubtedly be digested as a Fashion Moment™ (along with Kanye West's enigmatically teased Yeezy Season 2 show, fast becoming a third installment of the National Treasure franchise) this season’s hottest show is hometown boys made good Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osbourne’s debut at DKNY. The Public School’s duo is now solidly part of the Fashion establishment, and their interpretation of one of the '90s most important names in New York streetwear is being met with near-giddiness by everyone who is old enough to remember when its iconic mural lorded benevolently over Houston Street and wearing a bucket hat wasn’t ironic.
Misha Nonoo, Earth Angel, perhaps aware that asking anyone to show up to anything before 2 p.m. on a Saturday simply wasn't happening, is forgoing a physical show entirely, opting instead for the first-ever Instagram-only roll out at 10 a.m. Which means you can go to Russ and Daughters, bring a half pound of Gaspe back to the apartment, and let the warm glow of social media, the only person that understands, wash over you.
The conceit that fashion week has been brought under a tidy umbrella is mostly wishful mythology. Plenty of labels still insist on being mavericks by making you trudge up to some backwater like Carnegie Hall. Opening Ceremony is showing on Wall Street for god’s sake. In honor of Alexander Wang’s tenth anniversary show, being held at Pier 94, get a dozen halva donuts at Underwest Donuts, New York’s premier donut shop-in-a-car wash concept. No, the math doesn’t make sense, but neither does Wang’s show sponsors.
Where to Shop:
Totokaelo’s first East Coast outpost opens Saturday on Crosby Street, and it is not a game. The Seattle retailer beloved for its early corralling of avant labels like Rick Owens, Margiela, and Yohji Yamamoto, is offering five floors of fits in every gradation of black anyone could possibly wear at one time.
Dover Street Market, whose Open House on Thursday night was like a meeting of Rei Kawakubo’s most lurid fever dreams, has new installations from Gucci and Shoreditch’s Labour and Wait, and is a fine place to cop Supreme without having to kibbitz with hypebeasts while sitting in a deck chair on the curb. Come for the Gosha Rubchinskiy, stay for the matcha financiers at Rose Bakery.
Adidas, totally aware that people who can't buy Yeezys may buy a cheaper approximation, has set up a Tubular pop-up in Soho through September 12. The shoppable gallery space showcases the brand's upcoming offerings like the Tubular Doom which borrows heavily from the Yeezy Boost and Y-3 Qasa (but clocks in at an affordable $75 per pair), and the Tubular X, which looks equally futuristic.
Where to Party:
If you didn’t make it into Marc Jacobs’ 70s-era party with your studiously assembled “DUSTIN HOFFMAN OUTSIDE WEATHER UNDERGROUND VILLAGE TOWNHOUSE EXPLOSION” look, or missed the only fashion week party that matters—the G-Shock Dinner at The Four Seasons—Fashion™ does not cry for you. Some other brands that are not signifiers of hip-hop’s iced-out excess period are throwing parties, too, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Public School celebrates their collection at an afterparty at the Lower East Side’s The Box. For reference, previous Public School parties have featured shoehorning an entire high school drumline and dance team into a packed room.
Susanne Bartsch’s club-kid conclave Kunst party goes populist with an open door jam Wednesday night at Gramercy Theater, with music by Juliana Huxtable and others.
And of course, one must always assume Virgil Abloh to be spinning somewhere. He DJed at the afterparty feting Rihanna's Puma collaboration just two days ago, and New York Fashion Week once again coincides with Rosh Hashanah, so expect him to be wearing his finest Jewish Hat.
