New York Fashion Week
Melania Gluch
Business Fashion Writer
New York city has been making substantial progress towards a return to normalcy within the past few weeks. Several city traditions such as Broadway and the Met Gala have returned after last year’s cancelations due to the pandemic. One of the most prominent events in the city includes New York Fashion Week. Organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), New York Fashion week is a biannual series of runways shows and demonstrations used by designers to present their collections for the upcoming fashion seasons. Typically, New York fashion week brings over 230,000 visitors to the city and generates approximately 900 million dollars for the city’s economy. With a year long hiatus, designers went all out for this year’s event using unconventional and creative ways to show off their new collections.
Designers Ev Bravado and Téla D’Amore used a unique setting to reveal their fourth collection of Who Decides War. This collection is an homage to military styled clothing and this year’s collection added biblical and American history elements to the mix. Styles included bomber jackets with appliques resembling stained glass windows of prominent American activist figures such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. The runway was set up on the dock of the Intrepid with World War II fighter planes flying above models as they worked in conjunction with the designs to create a story about God, America, and war.
While on the topic of unusual runway settings, Tombogo’s performance took place on a rooftop garden in the city. The theme of the collection titled Nature is Healing has a double meaning of the return society is making towards the pre pandemic lifestyle, but also the strong overtones of nature allude to the climate crisis. The collection connects to the efforts that need to be made to heal both the environment and our society after the events which occurred in 2020.
The Telfar demonstration included something never seen before as the brand hosted a press conference revealing their new idea for Telfar TV. This is an application that will be available on Apple and Roku TV. The concept behind this idea is to give the company more control over its connection with consumers. How it will work; consumers will watch Telfar TV and use a QR code that appears at the screen to purchase the items of their choice. The brand no longer wholesales their bags to stores, , they are switching to this modality which eliminates influence from social media algorithms and gives the designers more control over marketing and consumer information. This new method of shopping and is still in its testing phase. However, based on the results of Telfar TV, other companies may begin to switch to a similar way of e-commerce.
Contact Melania at melania.gluch@student.shu.edu