Can ‘new sheriff’ Tom Ford bring New York Fashion Week 2019 into line?
- New York Fashion Week’s long schedule and high number of events – up to 600 in a season – undermine the Big Apple’s credibility as a fashion capital
- Designer Tom Ford, incoming chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, is cutting down the number of catwalk shows and making them shorter
“Democratic” is a word that so often peppers discussions of New York Fashion Week – an event so inclusive it has featured as many as 600 presentations in a single season – you could be forgiven for thinking the right to stage a fashion event in the city was enshrined somewhere in the American constitution.
For years people have complained the schedule is too long and disorganised and that New York Fashion Week’s “all-in” ethos undermines its credibility, compared with the far more exclusive programmes of the other “Big Four” fashion weeks in London, Milan and most notably, Paris, whose official women’s, men’s and haute couture schedules are notoriously difficult for designers to penetrate.
Not surprisingly, the New York event has witnessed an exodus of international media and buyers and even a number of prominent US designers in recent years.
Now a new sheriff in town in the form of Tom Ford, the incoming chairman of peak US fashion body the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), is cracking his whip on this Wild West of fashion weeks in the hope of further bringing it into line.
For September’s spring/summer 2020 shows, the CFDA’s “official” NYFW schedule has been whittled down to a lean five days and five nights, starting on Friday.
