Since its sputtering pandemic comeback, a certain corner of the industry has been hand-wringing and harrumphing about the pre-blogger Bryant Park “good old days” of New York Fashion Week. Indeed, things have changed. For one, the park opened fashion week not with a runway show but as the final stop on an Anna Wintour–hosted voting march led by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), where the First Lady and a litany of designers who have dressed her made an appearance. Later that night, Willy Chavarria closed the first day of fashion week with América: a 68-look collection of tailoring and sportswear, complete with an Adidas collaboration and an appearance by 27-year-old Olympic gold-winning sprinter Noah Lyles. In about 15 minutes flat, Chavarria single-handedly recast Americana from the realm of polo field prep, making Mexican American culture and its associated political movements, like the United Farm Workers union, his muses.
On the penultimate night of fashion week, Luar’s Raul Lopez, a Dominican New Yorker, plumbed the depths of his own heritage to inform a heavy-hitting collection whose highlights included leather, organza, and satin tailoring, as well as nascent eveningwear, all worn with unfuckwithable aplomb. Elsewhere, Elena Velez brought punk rock appeal to mythic female figureheads who were known for personifying cultures on the cusp of revolution. A memorable, corseted and coiffed Marianne closed the show, but it was the technical adeptness of Velez’s ruched dresses and leather handiwork that linger in our minds.
