 | | Edward Enninful, Jennifer Lopez and Anna Wintour at the Coach spring 2023 runway show this week. BFA Images |
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Hello, Open Thread. Happy New York Fashion Week! Yup, it's really here. |
Fashion week officially starts today, but since fashion, as we know, obeys no rules, the shows actually started on Wednesday with Rachel Comey, staged in a back alley downtown between Bond Street and Great Jones, and Batsheva at the top of Hudson Yards in a new outpost of the BondST restaurant, just overlooking the Vessel. |
During the collections, we get dragged all over the fashion capitals with no particular logic (there's a lot of strategic travel planning involved), but I do appreciate the fact that shows, well, show us parts of the cities we might not otherwise see. It's one way to get different perspectives. |
Anyway, the parties started too, with a Victoria's Secret bash for its new movie/identity — read all about what to expect and what I thought of it here — and cocktails at Gracie Mansion hosted by Mayor Eric Adams, who modeled a bright red, extremely well-tailored jacket for the event. Whatever you think of him, a section of his very enthusiastic speech stuck with me, and I wanted to pass it on: |
"Imagine walking to your first prom, and you are able to wear an outfit that is going to allow you to feel better about yourself because you may have a learning disability and you spent your entire high school period being bullied or mistreated. Or imagine being a woman who's coming through a domestic violence situation, and someone has an event where they allow you to have designer coat so you feel good about yourself. The piece of material that we place on our bodies is a way that we define ourselves, and when it's done correctly, it gives us a level of confidence. It gives us a level of strength and courage." |
Also true: The celebs have been out in full force, especially at the Coach show and dinner celebrating Stuart Vevers's 10th anniversary as a designer. Lil Nas X was there, along with Jennifer Lopez, but the guest I found most charming was Mr. Vevers's white-haired father, who had flown in from the north of England and was attending his first fashion show. He looked both delighted by the whole experience and somewhat flummoxed. |
It was a reminder that, like the view from Hudson Yards and Mr. Adams's words, the human side of this hoo-ha is what really matters. Something to remember as the circus rolls on. |
To catch up on what to expect, check out this preview of the season; meet Peter Do, whose first Helmut Lang collection is the most anticipated debut in New York; and catch up on the acquisition news that threatens to rewrite the whole fashion-fame rule book. |
Then have a good, hydrated weekend. We'll be at shows the whole time, so join me on the frow by following @vvfriedman on X, formerly known as Twitter, or Threads. (Which do you like better?) And check in for reviews and news here. You never know what will happen. |
| IT'S NEW YORK FASHION WEEK! | | | | | |
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| MEANWHILE, IN THE REAL WORLD …. | | | | |
Your Style Questions, Answered |
Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader's fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed. |
 | | Audrey Hepburn on the set of "Breakfast at Tiffany's."Paramount Pictures/Corbis, via Getty Images |
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When does a style become a classic? I have read all the discussions about whether skinny jeans are still in, but if a particular style is a classic, isn't it always in? Especially if it suits your body type? — Nisha, New York City |
"Classic" is one of those words everyone throws around but almost no one defines. Most people's attitudes toward identifying classics seem to mirror Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's, well, classic, words about pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio: "I know it when I see it." |
The best answers to what constitutes a classic I have ever found come from Italo Calvino's 1986 essay, published in The New York Review of Books and called "Why Read the Classics?" He was talking about books, but like Justice Stewart's definition of porn, his words also explain classic clothing pretty well, especially a series of 14 short definitions. My three favorite are: |
- "A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers."
- "A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off."
- "'Your' classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it."
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Just sub in "garment" for "book" or "work," and you'll get the idea. |
It's pretty much impossible to pinpoint a moment when a piece of work becomes a classic because the label is one that gets added in hindsight. History is written by the victors, goes the adage, and, similarly, classics are anointed by the future. (Except, perhaps, for the word "pulviscular," which as far as I am concerned is an instant classic.) |
But one thing to keep in mind, as Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough, the designers of Proenza Schouler, said when we were talking over the issue, is that the whole point of a classic is that it transcends any particular style. One of the reasons a classic is a classic is that it can morph to reflect contemporary styles while never losing its core identity. |
For example, consider such fashion classics as white shirts, trench coats, little black dresses and flat-front pants. For each of us, and in each era of time, they contain multitudes. Waists and hems may be higher or lower, shoulders smaller or wider, body cuts loose or form-fitting, but the essential form remains. |
That means that when it comes to jeans, it is the concept of jeans themselves that is classic, not whether the jeans are skinny, boyfriend, stonewashed or whatever. That is simply a matter of taste and trend. |
Finally, it is also possible to differentiate between clothes that are general classics and clothes that are "classics for you" — which is really just another term for "personal uniform." But that's a whole other discussion. |
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