The American Dream revisited at New York Fashion Week
As fashion month kicks into gear, the industry has come to offer a unique political platform.
Nobody creates quite so inviting a universe as Ralph Lauren.
Indeed, he not only creates them but he can replicate them too – see the recreation of his iconic New York Polo Bar in an equestrian estate in the Hamptons – for his show ahead of New York Fashion Week.
Attended by everyone from First Lady Jill Biden – a frequent wearer of the brand, including to the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris – to Jude Law, Usher and Laura Dern – the show was a flex of Lauren’s might. A journey through classic Ralph Lauren styles, including its Polo label (complete with cute “families”) and crisply elegant suiting and white evening wear from the Ralph Lauren collection, original “supers”, including Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, walked the runway.
The mythology of the brand – with the spry Lauren, 84, something like a film director in his creation of a crisply elegant, entirely aspirational all-American lifestyle that embodies his own family life, aesthetic and creative values – matters.
“To a large extent, our brand is bigger than our business,” Ralph Lauren chief executive Patrice Louvet told The Wall Street Journal after the show. Still, the sheer force of the show surely is a sign that business is good.
It’s worth noting that fashion is not just unavoidably and sometimes potently political, but a platform too.
Ahead of the official schedule, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, in partnership with Vogue magazine and non-profit I Am a Voter, held a non-partisan march dubbed Fashion for Our Future with the aim of encouraging people to vote in the looming election. It was attended by Conde Nast editorial director and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who wore a Kamala Harris scarf, and a slew of fashion industry heavyweights.
Meanwhile, the idea that the personal – including what we put on our bodies – can be political was a message at the Willy Chavarria show, with the designer’s take on classic American sportswear. Guests at the show received a booklet from the American Civil Liberties Union printed with the full US constitution.
Following the march (with the merchandise exchanged for street-style photographer-ready garb) the kick-off for the fashion month circus ahead began.
The mood of the season so far? People are seeking lightness and reprieve. There is a feeling for dressing up and looking polished and prepared for an uncertain world.
Butter yellow was a noticeable trend, from the gorgeously filmy (if slightly impractical) organza trousers at cult label Khaite to the masterful colour-blocking at Tibi, where tomato-soup red also made an appearance. Nautical accents and winky preppiness could be found on several runways, including at Tommy Hilfiger, who this year took over what was once the Staten Island Ferry for a starry show blending polo knits and chinos with a performance by the Wu Tang Clan (Staten Island alum).
Bored of sameness in fashion, the sense is that people want to feel something. Or at least be wearing something with a little pizzazz.
As Lazaro Hernandez, co-founder of Proenza Schouler, told Vogue Runway backstage of the inspiration behind this year’s collection – and beyond – “No one needs another black suit”.
“What’s luring people, at least for us, is an emotional quality – like, you look at that and you say, ‘that’s so amazing, I need it’. It’s about trying to elicit an emotional response.”
Emotional resonance could be felt in the Alaïa show, with creative director Pieter Mulier decamping from his usual Paris haute couture schedule to show in the Big Apple.
Held in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum, the first time a fashion show has been held in the space, guests included Rihanna, Liv Tyler, Greta Lee and race car driver Lewis Hamilton, a style icon in his own right.
The collection paid attention, and homage, to American fashion. The house’s founder, revered couturier (and “King of Cling”) Azzedine Alaïa, was an avid admirer and collector of American designers such as Charles James and Pauline Trigère. Indeed, as The Times noted, it was a show held in New York in 1982, with Andy Warhol front row, that put the label on the map.
“Americans have been the first clients of Alaïa since the beginning,” Mulier told The Times.
Spliced with Alaia signatures such as slinky body-con pieces and skater skirts, and a deeply luxurious kind of sensuality, there were nods to American greats such as Halston’s jersey silhouettes of the ’70s and sculptural puffer jackets that reference Charles James. “I thought it was quite beautiful to bring the essence of American fashion to the collection, which is a sense of ease, which is a different kind of luxury than what we know in Europe,” Miulier told Vogue Runway.
Another celebration of America, as well as vivid colour and texture, could be found at deeply feminine designer Ulla Johnson. This season Johnson turned to the work of abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner, collaborating with her estate to use three of her works – 1970 painting Comet, as well as Portrait in Green and Palingenesis – as prints for dresses and separates.
Meanwhile, uptown polish was, as ever, at Carolina Herrera where society grand dames – current and aspiring – could find just the thing. Tory Burch too continues to evolve her brand, this season making all of the polish cool with textured bombers, slightly off-kilter blazers and fuzzily elegant pencil skirts.
Perhaps the real beauty of New York Fashion Week, still – maybe always – is that it means so many different things to different people, just like the city itself. Subcultures, where we live, how we live, all of this is shaped by – and represented within – fashion.
It can be a powerful thing.
Meanwhile, the game of fashion musical chairs continues with major new appointments: Haider Ackermann has been appointed creative director at Tom Ford and Sarah Burton, nine months after leaving Alexander McQueen, has taken on the top creative job at LVMH-owned French maison Givenchy.
Fashion month continues in London this week, followed by Milan and Paris.
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