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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Shadow selves and tinsel gowns: What we saw at New York Fashion Week
By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN
Updated:
9:21 AM EDT, Wed September 17, 2025
Source: CNN
On Manhattan’s breezy piers, inside golden-hour lit warehouses and
even in an Episcopal church: such locations served as the venue for
runway shows, as New York Fashion Week kicks off a busy fashion month.
While a growing number of influential designers (Ralph Lauren, Carolina
Herrera and Marc Jacobs, to name a few) are opting to show outside the
official calendar, or not at all, the city still drew : see Gwyneth
Paltrow and “White Lotus” actor Leslie Bibb at Michael Kors; or
singer Rosalía, “Emily in Paris” star Lily Collins, and Jung Kook
of BTS — whose fans flooded the streets to see him — at Veronica
Leoni’s sophomore collection for Calvin Klein.
Later that evening, another round of blaring car horns sounded in
Chinatown as guests attending the Alexander Wang show swarmed a corner
of Bowery, where Wang announced he would be turning a former bank into
a permanent cultural space dedicated to Asian arts. The show marked a
return of sorts for the Taiwanese American designer, who has been
largely absent from the schedule since facing multiple accusations of
sexual assault in late 2020 and early 2021. (The allegations led to
public apologies from the designer and a shift in his market, as he
instead focused on brand growth in China and ).
Wang’s latest show, which mixed risqué suiting and clubwear redolent
of the 2000s, was attended by Cardi B and her young daughter Kulture,
Martha Stewart, stylist Law Roach and “Love Island” couple Nic
Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen (known to fans as Nicolandria). The
show’s VIP guests sat at mahjong tables in the center of the floor,
becoming part of the runway.
Other designers leaned into a sense of community. Off-White, designed
by Ib Kamara, staged its maximalist, 1970s-inspired collection (modeled
by Kobe Bryant’s daughter Natalia, Jude Law’s daughter Iris, and
Solange’s son Julez Smith) on the rooftop basketball court of a
Manhattan high school. There, he invited street artists to transform
the environment with visual homages to the city’s five boroughs.
Rounding out the week, Coach ambassadors Elle Fanning, Charles Melton,
Storm Reid and K-pop star Soyeon sat front row for the American
heritage brand. Hours later, Jessica Alba, Emma Roberts, Naomi Watts,
Tessa Thompson and Mindy Kaling traveled to downtown Brooklyn for Tory
Burch. Meanwhile, Vivian Wilson, the estranged daughter of Elon Musk,
was cast in several shows, including Prabal Gurung, where she modeled
an oversized white knit top and matching mermaid skirt.
Dualities on the runway
Many eyes will be on Europe in the weeks to come, as a number of
high-profile designers make their debuts at big brands amid a wider
industry reshuffle. But New York also had new talent to welcome: Rachel
Scott, founder of the emerging label Diotima, is now also designing for
cool-girl brand Proenza Schouler. Early indications of her vision for
the latter could be seen at an intimate show in a Chelsea gallery,
which she worked on as a consultant, before formally stepping into the
role next season.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Aburn’s first collection for the avant-garde
label Area featured theatrical party looks as well as more wearable
streetwear, though with unexpected twists, true to the brand’s ethos.
There were sports jerseys spliced together and sleeves twisted into
mini skirts. The final looks were a crescendo of colorful tinsel and
bouncing gift ribbon that completely enveloped the models.
Speaking to CNN backstage, Aburn spoke of returning to Area founders
Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszczyk’s roots, “which is the
nightclub.” He said: “It looks like New York to me, because there
are these avant-garde, crazy characters, but they’re framed by these
normal, chic but quiet people. And that’s what makes New York
special. There is this duality: high and low, chic and crazy, cheap and
rich.”
For Coach’s latest collection, creative director Stuart Vevers also
had New York on his mind, and its balance of grit and glamour. Baggy
workwear pants, leather staples and plaid blazers in gray, tan and
white were designed to evoke the patina of buildings and “that bright
morning light that I feel is very special to this city,” Vevers
explained to CNN backstage. Accessories included snap coin purse
necklaces and clutches as well as dangling earrings made of small
(real) books — a reference to the boxes of books and other ephemera
residents leave out on stoops to pass along.
At the Collina Strada show, where founder and creative director Hillary
Taymour often presents a playful but politically salient concept,
models came out in twos. They wore identical looks — except that one
outfit was entirely in black. The models in all-black clothes walked
closely behind their more colorful counterparts, mimicking their
gestures and creating the illusion of a shadow. In the show notes,
Taymour explained that the shadows represented “humanity’s darkest
impulses,” which “no longer lurk in abstraction; they are taking
concrete form.” Rather than dismiss them, “we must befriend our
shadow. Bedazzle it, even,” she wrote.
Tory Burch, like other designers during the week, spoke of the
importance of designing with a sense of optimism through color and
texture. Her collection – which featured the embroidered monogram
initials of her design team throughout — explored the “complexity
of women,” she said backstage, and “the tension in precision and
imperfection and femininity and strength.” Perhaps most
representative was her introduction of slingback heels adorned with
dainty barbed wire in place of metal links. On the final evening,
designer Elena Velez gave her own, more theatrical interpretation of
female archetypes as she transformed a Burlesque bar into a stage for a
historical fantasy, where models in corsetry, garters, bonnets and
weather-beaten skirts seemed to time travel from dust bowl-era saloons
to downtown Manhattan.
Expanding the foundation
Amid a tumultuous fashion landscape, where shoppers are more
price-sensitive and spending more cautiously on high-end items, some
designers leaned into the familiar, presenting collections that felt
like smart extensions of past seasons by building on their signature
styles, rather than venturing into the unknown.
At Khaite — which has steadily grown into one of the week’s
headlining acts, boasting an A-list front row that included Aubrey
Plaza and the season’s first runway appearance by Kendall Jenner —
founder Cate Holstein focused on the label’s established symbols of
power dressing: bold shoulders, clean lines, exaggerated shapes,
limited color palettes and a balance between hard and soft materials.
She also toyed with construction, showing flipped hems and asymmetrical
gathering. Key items like leather jackets and skirts came in hues of
cherry red and mustard, while Jenner walked out in polka dots — .
In a hot, third-story gallery space, gender-neutral fashion label
Eckhaus Latta presented deconstructed looks — including tees worn by
male models with the front entirely cut out. Utilitarian pieces —
structured denim sets, belt bags, and shorts zipped open at the thighs
— were offset by ultra-sheer knits and mesh. The artist Martine Syms
made a guest appearance on the runway, while another model smoked a
pre-rolled joint.
“A lot of this collection is like, how we can do what we’ve been
doing and make it better,” co-founder Zoe Latta said backstage,
following the show. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel every
season. I don’t think that’s how we dress. I don’t think that’s
how meaningful clothes really operate.”
Nearby, the eponymous designer Willy Chavarria returned to New York
with a small, intimate show on Wall Street that featured womenswear
looks from his latest collection during the summer. Adding several new
pieces for the presentation, which took place in the recently opened
Printemps department store, the format harkened back to the traditional
salon show. Models in vibrantly hued Zoot suits, trench dresses and
wide-brimmed hats held numbered cards to identify the outfits they were
wearing for purchase. Their looks were completed with the occasional
martini glass in hand.
Scroll to see some of the best moments from New York Fashion Week.
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