USD students’ stance on this year’s NYFW
Nyla Harris / Asst. A&C Editor
On USD’s liberal arts campus, fashion can be used to signify group belonging, social status and self-expression — all of which students consciously or unconsciously participate in every day as they get dressed for school.
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Photo courtesy of @prabalgurung/Instagram
Since the event of New York Fashion Week (NYFW) recently occurred, conversations regarding the fashion and inclusion began circulating through the student body.
New York Fashion Week is a semi-annual series of events that occurs every September and February in Manhattan, New York. It is one of the four major fashion weeks in the world, with the others occurring in Paris, London and Milan.
The shows of New York Fashion Week provided leading designers from around the world with a global platform to showcase their collections.
In sum, NYFW is the creation and presentation of clothing, accessories and concepts to depict a visioned, distinctive way of dressing and American fashion. This year, it occurred between Sept. 8-13.
As designers debut new clothes, looks and ideas, models portraying the looks during the fashion shows are generally handled through modeling agencies. However, many lifestyle influencers and individual models attended this season’s edition.
USD junior Amari Esper is one such individual model who had the opportunity to walk the runway during the 2021 and 2022 NYFW February shows. She talked about her experience as a model.
“Participating in New York Fashion Week as a non-signed model really means working hard for a lot of the opportunities to be in shows,” Esper said. “It’s doing things like finding castings and connections to get in front of designers in order to really kind of present myself as a brand and sell myself to other people, so they would want me to be a part of their shows. As a non-signed, Black female model, it’s a lot of hard work, self-care and being my own boss.”
Photo courtesy of @selkie/Instagram
Part of the circulating conversation of NYFW is centered around the inclusion and diversity of models presented on the runway. Some NYFW brands followed a theme of including minority accessibility in their runway shows while other brands featured very limited diversity. This led to many people posting critiques of the events and shows online, talking about NYFW’s largeness and long-standing effect on public opinion.
USD senior Abby Baines is passionate about issues within the LGBTQ+ community. She posed some commentary on how NYFW attempts an inclusive environment for other LGBTQ+ and minority associated individuals.
“DapperQ is a queer style website and blog that held its 8th NYFW show this year. This was super cool to see, but at the same time these are not the shows that are getting the most attention,” Baines said. “The mainstream is still not interested in high risk gender bending expression when the models are trans, plus size people of color.”
Baines talked about mainstream shows, their targeted audience and how the queer community is impacted by the lack of attention to smaller more diverse shows.
“Generally, it’s safe to say that the shows that get the most attention break some gender fashion norms, with masculine-presenting models wearing skirts, and feminine-presenting models wearing boxy, oversized suits. These mainstream approaches are palatable to cis-hetero audiences,” Baines said. “Meanwhile, queer people look on, blasé about these undaring attempts at breaking any status quo or gender expression norms.”
The discussion of NYFW’s take on inclusivity and impact on the fashion community is also understood as a display of marketing strategy for brands. Critiques about brands having a few models to check off the diversity box have surfaced on social media.
Experienced stylist and USD senior Elia Balourdet spent time analyzing the business and strategic side of fashion marketing as she worked alongside fashion designers during her year abroad in Strasbourg, France this past year.
“At the end of the day, you know a brand is just kind of supporting their best interest and doing what they think will market the best and appeal the most to the audience,” Balourdet said. “Seeing a famous influencer that many people know modeling during Fashion Week, rather than someone that’s working behind the scenes, may be more exciting to some people. Which is sad in a way, but at the same time this is the type of industry we live in and we have to learn to work in that. But I just think it’s really cool to see people in the U.S. attempt to break norms in the fashion industry. Because it’s newer, there is a lot of room for growth there.”
The discussion of NYFW’s importance, inclusivity and impact on the fashion community continues to swarm around USD’s campus. The expression of an individual through fashion is an understood key aspect of the event.
As fashion events such as New York Fashion week continue to occur around the world, students on USD’s campus continue questioning and bettering the inclusivity of both the fashion and the art industry that are growing to surround and influence us.
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