Outwardly, this season’s New York Fashion Week shows followed a familiar playbook. Marc Jacobs showed his collection before the week technically began. The official schedule ran for six days (albeit with fewer events) and it played the hits: Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors, Tory Burch.
All of this brought a calm to a week that can sometimes be anything but. That calm extended to the streets outside shows, which drew smaller crowds with a relaxed energy. (Some rainy and snowy days surely played a part.) This laid-back attitude permeated people’s clothes, many of which were in neutral shades and worn with effortless elegance. The style outside also suggested that fur — including faux and secondhand — is having a renaissance, even among the most principled followers of fashion.
As the week bore on, there were moments when it felt a little too easy. Some seasons have so many shows or presentations that it’s hard to stop and breathe. While not always manageable, it gives the sense that people are working — hard. When a fashion week is as calm as the latest was in New York, you start to wonder if a lot of people who might have been there offering inspiration in and outside of shows were elsewhere, doing neither.
