The Cultural Phenomenon of New York Fashion Week

NYFW, F/W 2023

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The ethereal aura of the New York Fashion Week experience is truly one like no other. Despite there being fashion weeks in almost every other major city in the world, none seem to hold the regard and fame that New York does. One may bring Paris into the question, as it has long been a large epicenter for the fashion world; however, post World War II, New York sparked a new opportunity, specifically for American styles by American designers. And since the introduction of NYFW around the 1940’s, it has only grown in its size, popularity, and audience. In the past, the primary audience of runway fashion shows were solely made up of buyers, fashion press, and extremely elite groups. However, looking at the fashion shows of today’s world, there has clearly been an increase in the inclusivity as far as who may attend these shows. These observations sparked two main questions to me personally upon following this past spring season: What is it about New York’s fashion week that makes it a significantly bigger deal than other cities, and what has caused the lack of audience rigidity that there previously was when NYFW began in the 1940’s? 

Addressing the first of these two questions, there is no doubt that New York holds a high place of regard with the fashion stratosphere, even to the eye of an individual not deeply immersed in the fashion industry. For now, we’ll focus on why New York has such a prominent role in American fashion as the depth of speaking globally would be limitless. Below, you can see examples of some street style looks from this past season’s fashion week. 

from @withjean on Instagram.

from @linmick on Instagram.

New York has repeatedly shown itself to be one of, if not the strongest influence over American fashion, both in terms of runway and everyday street style. Out of the many major cities through the US, perhaps the only competitor to the massiveness of NYFW would be in Los Angeles, California. However, Los Angeles has proven itself to not be a particularly stand-out personality in the fashion scene as far as both runway and street style goes. According to Alex Kenney and Yash Goyal at The Daily Targum, they believe the NYFW scene is so large due to the growing “promotion and cultivation of diverse fashion designers,” in terms of both age, body, and sexuality. Additionally, Dhani Mau at Fashionista.com went even further as to say, “for whatever reason, LAFW has failed to represent what is actually an exciting local industry, or the city’s growing relevance to the global fashion conversation.” Others have brought in the thought that while New York receives the “top-of-the-line” luxury designers due to the acclaim they have built up for themselves, while also being the ever-favored city that New York City is (specifically in terms of fashion), Los Angeles seems to focus more on smaller, newer designers that are just beginning to get their start in the industry. Stemming from this, it follows that LA Fashion Week had only “officially been recognized by the CFDA (The Council of Fashion Designers of America) in the same capacity as New York, London, Milan, and Paris” in 2022. Speaking from personal experience, after having both attended and worked for shows for both Los Angeles Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week, there is no doubt that there is stark contrast between the two in many aspects. New York seemed to have a certain type of elevated elegance that personally outdid what I saw in Los Angeles. Pictures below for reference.

LAFW F/W 2021

NYFW F/W 2023

It will certainly be interesting to see what the future holds for other cities such as Los Angeles, and if they will continue to stick to their core of selecting a majority of fresh, young designers that may not have the title and accolades that designers in New York or Paris may have.

Moving on to the second question, the audience rigidity of fashion week shows has taken a turn, almost with no one noticing. I, personally, cannot recall a specific time when the audience of the runway fashion shows went from purely press, elitists, and buyers, like it was in the 40’s, to suddenly celebrities, influencers, with a significantly less amount of the previous group. What can most come to mind is the notably quick rise of social media within the past couple decades, as well as the joint introduction of influencers into the blogosphere having a part to play seeing as there had never been a position like the one of a social media content creator before around the 2000’s. While it can feel like the age of social media has long been around, in reality, applications such as TikTok and Instagram are still relatively young. And while the impact of an influencer or celebrity has truly increased the reach of fashion weeks universally, there has also been a great amount of lash back from the general public wondering why a simple, everyday person gets the chance to attend such high-profile events such as the ones involved with New York Fashion Week. Seeing as the role of an influencer in today's day and age is largely composed of elements of relatability, many simply cannot understand the reasoning behind these figures being invited to NYFW events and shows. The lifespan of an influencer in terms of relevance is extremely relative and unpredictable, as one can drop off of the Internet within a moment's notice, whether by choice or not. This begs the question of: will influencers and, in turn, celebrities continue to hold such an outstanding place within the fashion week life cycle; and further, will the impact of having such figures at fashion weeks continue to be successful in the future to come? Social media is still quite young, specifically in the ways it has taken such a prominent role in the life of Generation Z and even Generation Alpha, which can either mean social media will only continue to rise in popularity and impact, or it could have a chance of diminishing due to the unpredictability of the social media world. These questions may only ever be answered by waiting and watching what will happen in the coming decades, and I, for one, am very interested to see how it will play out.

Kenney, A. Goyal, Y. (2023, September 18). The Daily Targum. The Daily Targum. https://dailytargum.com/article/2023/09/fashion-beyond-runway-nyfws-impact-on-students-trends

Mau, D. (2023, October 4). Is it Time to Pay Attention to Los Angeles Fashion Week? Fashionista. https://fashionista.com/2023/10/los-angeles-fashion-week-2023