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New York Fashion Week is upon us once more, and your timelines are sure to be buzzing. On this week’s episode of Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr, fashion editors Eliza Huber and Anna LaPlaca take us inside the fall/winter presentations’ biggest moments, from Collina Strada’s lizard prosthetics to the most wearable trends to keep your eyes peeled for in the seasons ahead.
Catch excerpts from their conversation below, or tune in for the full rundown.
Eliza Huber: Out of everything that you’ve seen so far, were there any shows or designers that really stand out as favorites?
Anna LaPlaca: Yes, definitely. I went to my first Coach show yesterday, and it was so special. It just felt so personal, honestly, in a way that I think some shows don’t. Season after season, they’re known for always having this big, glamorous production. They always have lots of buzzy A-listers sitting in their front row, and this season was certainly no exception. They held it at the Park Avenue Armory, which is really a gorgeous landmark. It’s a massive building on the Upper East Side in New York, and it definitely has that old New York charm to it with the oak wood on the inside. It’s very dark and cozy. Even the soundtrack was reminiscent of the movie Cruel Intentions. At the final walk-through, the song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was playing. It just felt very much nostalgic.
EH: One thing that’s interesting, too, is that with Marc Jacobs showing kind of off the calendar—he showed earlier this season—he always shows at the armory. So it’s lovely that someone still showed there to incorporate that tradition in the fashion-week calendar in New York.
AL: Definitely.
AL: And then the other one that stands out is Brandon Maxwell. We both went to that show this morning, so it’s certainly fresh in my mind, but as the days go on, it’ll still remain top of mind. And it’s not really particularly for any reason that the show was flashy or had a lot of bubbling trends in it. But honestly, overall, it was just so striking in its simplicity. And I felt like the whole collection was imbued with this sense of modern elegance. It focused on a lot of really strong tailoring. There were great maxi coats. There were full skirts and these cute little kitten-heel slingbacks that I already had my eye on, and it just felt very serene in this way. That doesn’t always happen.
Oftentimes, it’s not easy to pick out an entire look head to toe that you’d be like, “Oh, I would totally wear that right now.” A lot of times, the runway tends to be a little more abstract and certainly risky—a little less approachable honestly. And this Brandon Maxwell collection was just so truly translatable into the modern-day wardrobe. And that’s what made it so enticing.
EH: There were even jorts. And I was like, “Well, I would wear those.” Like, that’s crazy.
AL: What about you? What stands out in your mind?
EH: Well, like you had with Coach, I went to my first Rodarte show earlier this week. It was one of the first shows of the official New York Fashion Week calendar, and it was such an experience. That’s the only way I can really describe it. They own it. They’ve held it in big, lavish churches. Even the lookbooks—when they were shooting them all and not doing in-person shows during COVID, it’s such a set. And they really brought that back into New York this season. They held it in this gorgeous old bank in Williamsburg. The set was all covered in this metallic glitter. So there was this huge tablescape in the middle, and it was covered in food—rotisserie chickens and loaves of bread and fruit—and then it was all covered in this glitter. It had these really tall candlesticks, and it all was flickering when you came in. It was all smoky and kind of dim, very moody, very like Wednesday Addams vibe.
And then the clothes really fit into that. It’s definitely dramatic. So there were things like big silver metallic wings attached to giant tinsel gowns. But then there were also simpler things that were like velvet gowns with long bell sleeves, kind of Stevie Nicks vibes with the addition of white lace and little flower rosettes, which is something that we’ve talked about a lot [on Who What Wear]. And there were also these stunning, giant flower arrangements that some of the models were holding. We were all like, “If we’re getting married, we’re gonna be holding those bouquets.”
EH: Did you notice any big viral moments that the internet’s blowing up about?
AL: Yeah, I loved that Chloë moment at Proenza—she’s one of my style icons, so that was so exciting to see. But I think one thing that stands out in my mind is this viral image that was shared all across Twitter and TikTok. And I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, but it’s this image of Anna Wintour sitting in the second row in a completely empty venue where the Collina Strada show is held. And people, I think, just lost their minds.
First of all, when I saw that photo, I just brushed it off because I was like, “Oh, that’s funny—Photoshop. I don’t know why somebody would make that.” It actually wasn’t until I went to a show the next morning, and a few of us were talking about it as we walked out. And I realized, no, that was literally an image of Anna Wintour sitting by herself in the back of an empty Collina Strada show. But I think the reason the internet lost its mind was because people don’t really understand and get to see often what it’s actually like to go to these shows and what the environment is like and why maybe she was sitting there. Like, what does that mean? … We thought about it more, and we realized the theory is that we think it made more sense for her to be seated in this back corner. Obviously, she’s always like front-row everything. But she was sitting in his back corner, and it was right next to the elevator. And as we know, [Wintour] likes to be first in, first out. So I believe that the show had ended, and everybody had cleared out, and she was waiting so that she could make her solo exit and just run to the elevator and, you know, go to the next show.
EH: Yeah, I just want to make that part of fashion week very clear—basically everything is on the hour every hour. And so many shows can be located in all these different locations. So you have shows [that] will end up starting a little bit late, say like 20 minutes late or 30 minutes late, and then they’ll last like 20 minutes. And then you basically have to run to get to the subway or to your car or get a cab and try to rush to whatever the next location is in order to get there on time. So it’s definitely a hectic journey in that 20- to 30-minute window between when a show ends [and] another one begins.
AL: Totally. There was one other layer to this Collina Strada, Anna Wintour example that I just want to briefly bring in, and I know you’re laughing because you already know what I’m going to say. But what was even funnier about Anna being at that show to begin with was the fact that Collina Strada is a designer that always has an incredibly imaginative, almost dreamlike setup and show, and in this particular runway, the models were wearing these prosthetic heads that were shaped like dolphins, and some were shaped like lizards and different animals. And they did not just walk down the runway. These models in these prosthetic heads would be crawling down and jumping out into the crowd. It was a full-on performance. It just makes it funnier to think about Anna sitting there and a model in a lizard head jumping out and lunging toward her. It’s very funny to think about.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Next up, check out our previous episode featuring Thomas Christos Kikis.
