If you work in fashion, there’s a pretty good chance that – whether in a smoking area or on an Instagram story – you’ve heard someone proclaim that NYFW is dead. Whether that’s true or not, there’s no question that the AW24 season was very much alive and well this time around.
Need proof? See the electric energy in Luar’s showspace as an entire room of guests’ watched Beyoncé watch Alex Consani stomp down the runway; Marc Jacobs sending models down an IRL dollhouse, blowing everyday furniture up to XXL proportions; Collina Strada’s models flexing their muscles to Britney Spears’ “Stronger”; Ludovic de Saint Sernin making his NYFW debut by paying his respects to New York legend, the late Robert Mapplethorpe; or modern day NY icon Julia Fox parading down Wiederhoeft’s golden, sun-bathed showspace dressed as a fluffy poodle bride.
Now – as we make our way through the rest of the fashion season – look back at all of NYFW AW24’s best runway moments below.
MARC JACOBS
“When you wake up in the morning and you’re a doll, you really don’t have to do anything but exist, you know?” model Colin Jones – swimming in a huge, protruding pair of shorts and a tank top, styled with an emerald brooch, puffed-up 60s hair, and clumpy strip lashes – told Emergency Intercom’s Enya Umanzor and Drew Phillips backstage at Marc Jacobs’ 40th anniversary show. Turns out – thanks to a showspace built around American artist Robert Therrien’s towering furniture sculptures (so tall that even Jacobs’ cast of models appeared shrunken-down) – Jacobs kicked off the fashion season by allowing each guest a moment of joyful, smooth-brained doll existence ahead of the busy month to follow. For the offering itself, Jacobs paid homage to his four decades of work so far, plus 60s icons like Diana Ross and Twiggy with glittering sequin-spotted gowns, flared, puffed-up sweat suits, and mod shift dresses – all cut to create illusions of 2D paper doll clothes and sent clacking down the runway with tiny, strappy heels.
COLLINA STRADA
From her smile-plastered SS23 show to AW23’s zoo animal models, we all know by now that Collina Strada’s Hilary Taymour knows how to put on a show that’s so beautifully eccentric, weird, and wild that it feels almost impossible to look away. This season, with a remix to Britney Spears’ “Stronger” blaring in the background, the designer unveiled the label’s next big concept: Collina’s Gym. With models appearing to be dripping in sweat stomping down the runway in painted long-sleeves and corsets sculpted with ab, peck, and arm muscles; long, patterned jackets puffed-up with rounded arms and shoulders; bunched-up dressed in fiery red fabric; and baggy, sweat-stained t-shirts and hoodies paired with boxing gloves. “The femme body and mind has long been shaped by the magination of men,” read the AW24 show notes. “It’s about time we resculpted that meat-headed vision into something closer to the reality of femininity – something altogether sweatier, yet more refined.” Meanwhile – as always – the show was also a masterclass in casting, with a line-up of models who were pregnant, plus-sized, muscular, disabled, and older, all flexing their arms down the runway.
LUDOVIC DE SAINT SERNIN
This season, Parisian designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin made his NYFW debut – introducing the New York fashion crowd to all of his horny little brand signatures – lace-up dresses, mesh tops, leather harnesses, and tiny briefs, to name a few. However, aside from re-establishing who the Ludovic wearer is, the collection also paid homage to its new city with a dedication to NY native and legendary photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. Created in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe foundation – which supports both photography and AIDS/HIV research – the show drew inspiration from the nuanced themes of sexuality and that run through Mapplethorpe’s body of work. “I’ve always been in awe of the fragile duality of his work, and his ability to tease out the darkly erotic in the ostensibly innocent,” Saint Sernin wrote on Instagram ahead of the show, which brought Mapplethorpe’s legacy to life by recreating his iconic images via hand-made, sequined mesh tops with graphic floral motifs, leather masks, and horned accessories. In its entirety, it felt sexy and soft at the same time, revealing of the label’s next chapter, and deeply personal to New York.
SANDY LIANG
For AW24 – just days after hosting a pre-NYFW Chinese Lunar New Year party – Sandy Liang unveiled a cute, pared-back collection based around the theme of a “schoolgirl who grows up to be a princess” for AW24. Despite an entire FROW decked out in girly bows and accessories (even Devon Lee Carlson’s dog Marty came styled in a grey jumper with a pink rosette on the collar), this season Liang’s signature bows came through in subtle, understated touches – with tiny ribbons attached on bags, dresses’ collars, shirt-sleeves, and ballet heels. Meanwhile, floral skirt sets; fuzzy hats, skirts, and coats; cute, chunky silver star bags; sailor-collared tops with rosette brooches; and pink ribbon-laced Saloman trainers hinted at the brand’s next chapter post-online explosion.
DAUPHINETTE
This season, Dauphinette’s AW24 runway was all about indulgence. Mini dresses came overflowing with pounds of interlaced wig hair woven into corsets, vintage mink coats appeared dripping with rhinestones or covered in flowers, gowns came crawling with jewel beetles; and velvet trousers were padded along the hips crafting ultra-wide proportions. According to the label’s founder Olivia Cheng – after a few years of trying to reach a utopic vision of commercial success within the label – she decided to drop all expectations and perfectionism, instead reaching for a messy, more is more mindset and following her artistic brainwaves, guilt-free, no matter what it might say about the brand. That’s where this season’s biggest inspirations came through – particularly, a line from 3OH!3’s 2008 track “DON’TTRUSTME” that reads: “You tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef / That I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him.”
“This collection is not about being the Happiest Brand on Earth, or about being a brand at all,” Cheng wrote on Instagram. “It’s work that can be worn, but doesn’t have to be… I’m a vegetarian devouring the meat-lover’s special.” Don’t let it fool you though, all this indulgence is not to say that the collection veered from the label’s sustainable eco-conscious ethos. In fact – like all of her runways collections – the designer used at least 50 per cent recycled materials across the entire offering which she mapped out for full transparency alongside the chaos.
WIEDERHOEFT
Another day, another FROW slay from Julia Fox. If you’ve spent any time on social media this year, then you’ve probably seen images of the actor-slash-author roaming around the streets of New York in a corseted Wiederhoeft bridal dress and long, puffy veil cross your feed. This time around – showing up for the label’s AW24 show – Fox paraded around Wiederhoeft’s golden, sun-bathed show space dressed as a fluffy poodle bride before stepping into her front-row seat to watch this season’s offering unfold. Here, as an eerie Enya soundtrack blared in the background, the label invited guests into a foggy, make-believe “secret room” – AKA, its models acted out the eccentric, slightly haunting characters you might find in a very long hallway that doesn’t seem to ever end. Inside the fantasy, models wore theatrical feathered minis, bow-covered bondage dresses, sequined gowns arranged to depict the image of someone pressing their hands up to a glass door, and classic suiting updated with beaded handprints wrapping around the neck and down the back of the trousers. Plus, it wouldn’t be a Wiederhoeft show without an offering of incredibly well-made corsets, and this season, the label unveiled a brand new style titled the “Salon” – which came bathed in glittering blue crystals, covered in leopard print, and scaled-back in red and black satin iterations.
LUAR
From Beyoncé front row to Alex Consani in a cloak and micro-bangs, with this season’s offering exploring “metrosexual” dressing from the 90s and the femininity behind Rococo menswear (ICYMI, Raul Lopez – the label’s founder and designer – deemed this combination as “Luarsexual” in an interview with The FACE after the show), all we really have to say is: NYFW is doing just fine, thank you x
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