Style's Week #21: Day 1
NYFW, Seventh on Sale, J.Crew catalogue, Ralph Lauren in the Hamptons, Stone Island news, and more.
Happy Friday! It’s New York Fashion Week Day 1.
I’ll be typing in analysis from my desk throughout the week as the shows get going.
This morning to kick-off NYFW the CFDA and Vogue joined forces for Fashion for Our Future, a 1000+ person march in New York City to encourage voting registration. ‘Fashion for Our Future’ t-shirts will go on sale following the march at Old Navy stores nationwide and on their official website. The tees were designed by the former dauphin of New York fashion, Zac Posen, who’s taken on the role of creative director at Old Navy.
Anna Wintour told the New York Times about the appointment, that although last year’s sales were $14.9 billion, the company had become “just product”.
I always felt Posen’s clothes were stylish for the times, but clunky. Whether the designer, dress and ballgown maker, can remake the Old Cadillac brand into a Porsche Carrera, remains to be seen.
A look back at Seventh on Sale
Today’s march made me think of the Seventh on Sale march that was held as a fundraiser for the HIV/AIDS pandemic in 1990 in New York.
In the 1980s, AIDS took the lives of hundreds of thousands, including of New York designer Perry Ellis. When Donna Karan asked Ellis what was wrong with his skin, which had been ravaged by the disease, he said to her, ‘This is a private matter. I’m allergic to strawberries.’
The CFDA wrote about the time, ‘Fashion was in the business of building aspirational brands, dreams of the beau monde. When designers or other influential movers were struck down by AIDS, their death was ascribed to something else – like pneumonia – if a cause was given at all.’
As you can imagine, designers (as were people) feared the disease would bring a bad rap to their business and their lives. But the CFDA notes, ‘Raw fear gave way to empathy and courage and Seventh on Sale was born.’
Courage and fashion? A match made in heaven.
Following the death of Ellis in 1986, Donna Karan, Anna Wintour, and Ralph Lauren amongst others, called everyone they knew to set up the Seventh on Sale fundraiser which came to fruition on November 1990.
At the event, a curtain caught on fire, Donna Karan bought her first Bill Blass dress, and socialites, who were dressed in new head-to-toe designer, flocked to the sales racks to shop for designer steals and one-offs. Anna Wintour noted, “No one wanted to leave”.
The march and HIV/AIDS fundraiser (coupled with a certain joy for shopping) brought New York fashion into a new era. To this day, we celebrate the power of 90s glossies, the glamour of the times, and the clean aesthetic that was.
The J.Crew Catalogue Buzz
This week I wrote about J.Crew’s comeback, which has been in discussion on Substack chats and on Notes. The company released their new catalogue and is betting on New York street style to power their sales and herald in a new era of clothes. You can read the article here.
What’s striking is how the company came crashing down in 2020 and filed for bankruptcy due to the financial strain companies were facing with the covid pandemic. Everyone I’ve talked too agrees that the brand was pretty bleak heading into the 2020s, they had lost their sway through overgrowth and rising prices.
Their stores, wrote the New York Times in 2017, became “patronizing” towards customers and inspired “a lack of confidence in the idea that people, given a range of options and a functioning occipital lobe, would choose your products.”
I was a fan of J.Crew up until I moved to Paris in 2015, and frankly I am hoping for a comeback. Still, I think that while their new collection (and the influencers speaking on their behalf) are eye-catching, that the brand needs to thoroughly consider how a New Yorker wants to dress today. And not sink into a comfortable corner of vintage Americana that we all love and lust for, but that could use a refashioning.
As the shows start, I’ll be taking a look at how the preppy style develops on the runways, if it’s good (or not), and I’ll be looking out for the Willy Chavarria, Elena Velez, Who Decides War, Carolina Herrera, Khaite, Off-White, and Luar shows, and any other designer that catches my eye. I’ll report back.
Let’s get down to business.
NEWS:
The ‘disconnected from reality’ Ralph Lauren fashion show in Bridgehampton. (NYT)
As a TV reporter once put it about the NYT, the reporters and critics at the Times aren’t exactly writing their reports to get your Christmas card. Vanessa Friedman wrote, “The problem is, at a time when the stakes of the outside world feel increasingly urgent, the question is how to dress for the moment.”
What the clothes looked like, I will leave to your imagination. Hint: there was a white picket fence and there horses.
As I would say in French: c’était un défilé dans les Hamptons, quoi.
The clothes were beautiful. I particularly liked the suede jackets with fringe on them. I asked the Ralph Lauren team for a press release. If I hear back from them, and I will nudge them again for you, I will write a fuller review.
Sitting all day is bad for your butt. (NYT)
Specifically, it can cause “gluteal amnesia” and increase your risk of chronic pain and serious side effects.
It can be difficult if you have a corporate job (like myself), but it is important to stand up and do some sort of exercise every 50 minutes. Sitting for too long a period of time can even impact exercise activities such as running. Dr. Metzl told the Times, “Add in exercises like squats or lunges at least a few times a week”. Then, those jeans you’ve been eyeing will look even better on you.
Liam Gallagher is the new face of Stone Island, and OASIS fans rejoice. (Dazed)
The band has come back together and is going on tour. The Manchester band broke up in 2009 after public fighting and “bitchy comments to reporters and no-show gigs and festivals”, according to the Daily Mail.
But do you care? The band is back and Gallagher fits with the Hooligan aesthetic of Stone Island. It’s momentum for a brand on the rise.
I wish you a good weekend ahead. And for new readers, welcome! I’ll be traveling to the US next week, and I’ll be writing this weekly column from the plane. See you next week.
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Everything I’ve seen from the Willy Chavarria show makes me excited to wear clothes!!