New York Fashion Week: The key trends

It may have been a quiet season in New York, where there was more drama about the locations – the fashion pack went everywhere from east Brooklyn to the Carlyle Hotel to a wrecked passage in Chinatown to Ralph Lauren’s garage in Bedford – but several key trends were clear. Here are five of them:

Athleisure is far from over

Rihanna summed up the whole active sportswear obsession with her with biker shorts, scuba tops and Pacific blue nylon overalls anchored by logo mountain boots. While Public School presented semi-sheer nylon trenches cut as cocktail dresses; and sweatshirts as mini dresses. The shoe of the season was very much the
techy sport shoe - like at Dion Lee with some remarkable chrome studs to wrap your big toe around or at Marc Jacobs, where techy sandals were finished with evening baboosh or covered with fringes and tassels.
“Don’t forget New York is sportswear central. You will not get anything like this when you go back to Europe! But stretch fabrics, drawstring anoraks techy finishes, silk nylon garments are still a big factor in America,” says Linda Fargo fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman, fashion’s most famous single department store.

Eighties shoulders and power suit
Tom Ford opened the season with a rose gold blazer with peak shoulders, and featured a dozen big jackets in his show. At Oscar de la Renta, the duo of Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia showed elongated jackets throughout that show. While at their own brand, Monse, they presented windowpane check power double-breasted blazers.
“The Power suit has not gone away. Believe me,” smiled Tracy Margolies, Chief Merchant of Saks Fifth Avenue.

Ease versus structure
Clothes tended to float in New York this week. With lots of scarf dresses, and cocktails that rippled a way from the body. Tory Burch began the season with David Hicks style print caftans and tunics that wafted through the beautiful garden of the Cooper Hewitt institute. While at Coach the collection’s core was the little slip dress that billowed continuously. And Monse’s broad stripped men’s shirts were as large as parachutes.

“I like what Laura and Fernando are doing at Monse. I think they just killed it this season,” enthused Fargo.

Fashion nostalgia
A longing for a more elegant era, devoid of the crassness of current political debate in America. Most especially by non New Yorker designers. Like Texas-born Brandon Maxwell with his cocktail hour glamour; or Venezuelan Carolina Herrera – with her ode to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly inside the Museum of Modern Art. Or even at a brilliant collection by Creatures of the Wind, whose artisanal coats were inspired by Sixties Counter Culture rebellion.

Americana
Nowhere more so than at Calvin Klein, albeit Raf Simons’ vision is the troubled side of the American Dream. While at Coach, its homage to Keith Haring captured the optimism of the New York art scene.

New York Fashion Week: The key trends

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