The POST gives you the lowdown on one of the biggest fashion events of the year—from show schedules to venues and streaming sites. Oh, we threw in a bit of history lesson, too!
It’s almost curtain-up for this year’s New York Fashion Week! The excitement is palpable—electrifying even—with designers expected to showcase innovative designs for their spring/summer 2025 collections.
Perhaps no other New Yorker can perfectly describe the cultural impact of the biannual event as much as Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, who famously said, “Every year the women of New York leave the past behind and look forward to the future. This is known as Fashion Week.”
And if we were to follow Carrie’s logic, the future is on Friday, September 6, opening day of New York Fashion Week.
This season will see over 60 runway shows featuring some of the industry’s most respected names, including 3.1 Phillip Lim, Luar, Tory Burch, and Willy Chavarria. Organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), the event is one of the most highly anticipated events in the global fashion calendar, setting fashionistas abuzz with anticipation.
When was the first-ever New York Fashion Week?
Did you know that it wasn’t always known as “fashion week”? The precursor to New York Fashion Week was known as “Press Week,” and was established on July 19, 1943. It was the brainchild of publicist Eleanor Lambert as a way to promote American fashion when French fashion was inaccessible during World War II.
By the mid-1950s, the event became known as the “Press Week of New York.” Fashion editors from around the world flocked to the city, and the number of designers and shows continued to grow. The ’60s and ’70s, meanwhile, paved the way for influential designers like Oscar de la Renta, Roy Halston, Diane von Furstenberg, and Calvin Klein.
Fast forward to 1993, the CFDA transformed Press Week into a more organized event called “7th on Sixth.” The name referred to the location of the main show venues on 7th Avenue in New York City’s Garment District.
It was over two decades later, 22 years to be exact, when the event was officially called the New York Fashion Week. The rebranding aimed to reflect the ever-evolving nature of the fashion industry, while embracing the digital age by incorporating technology, social media, and online streaming into the event.
Across eight decades, New York Fashion Week has evolved from a fashion event born out of World War II to one of the so-called “Big Four.” Today, 75 fashion houses present runway collections biannually, dazzling and inspiring fashion lovers, celebrities, socialites, and supermodels alike.
When will New York Fashion Week spring-summer 2025 open?
The New York Fashion Week is the event that kicks off fashion month, with the London, Milan, and Paris iterations following one week after another. The Big Apple’s version officially begins on Friday, September 6, but the extravaganza will unofficially start with fashion houses Ralph Lauren and Proenza Schouler presenting their collections before then.
Meanwhile, the renowned New York design studio Area will have the honor of opening the event with their fall/winter 2024 runway show. CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Melitta Baumeister, a New York-based German designer and Parsons School of Design alumna who was awarded a cash prize and mentorship last fall, will close the six-day festivities.
New York Men’s Day takes place on opening day, with presentations from A. Potts, Clara Son, Earthling, Sivan, and The Salting just before the first runway show. Shows are scheduled each day and will wrap on the evening of September 11.
Here’s a selection of the shows taking place during New York Fashion Week 2024, as per USA Today.
Friday, Sept. 6: Area, Brandon Maxwell, Badgley Mischka, Willy Chavarria
Saturday, Sept. 7: Prabal Gurung, Sergio Hudson, Tommy Hilfiger, Kim Shui
Sunday, Sept. 8: Ulla Johnson, Off-White, Jason Wu Collection, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Eckhaus Latta
Monday, Sept. 9: Carolina Herrera, Naeem Khan, Coach, Theophilio, Tory Burch
Tuesday, Sept. 10: COS, Michael Kors, Elena Velez, Cynthia Rowley
Wednesday, Sept. 11: Jane Wade, Private Policy, Frederick Anderson, Melitta Baumeister
Where will New York Fashion Week be held?
This year, the headquarters of the New York Fashion Week moved from downtown’s Spring Studios to the Starrett-Lehigh Building in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Described as a “professional and cultural hub,” the venue boasts an outdoor terrace with a sweeping view of the Hudson River, a restaurant, a food hall, and event spaces. Various designers will also host their own runway shows throughout NYC.
How can we watch New York Fashion Week shows for free?
Thanks to a new partnership forged with the Rockefeller Center, for the first time the CFDA will stream presentations of collections for public viewing.
A mixture of livestreams and recorded runway shows will be screened Friday, September 6 through Wednesday, September 11 exclusively at Rockefeller Center, with the viewing screen prominently located at its iconic The Rink.
The partnership makes Rockefeller Center the only centralized hub–physical or digital–where the public will be able to view NYFW shows. All screenings will be free and open to the public.
You can also catch some of the best looks from the fashion week on NYFW’s website. Many designers and fashion houses will also livestream their own shows on their social media accounts.
