New York Fashion Week: Highlights from the Fall-Winter 2024 runways
Jacqui Palumbo and Alex Rees, CNN
·15 min read
Across Manhattan and Brooklyn, designers have been offering enticing twists on familiar dress codes at New York Fashion Week, which concluded on February 14. Perhaps fittingly, there was a lot of fashion to love.
Inside the neoclassical Williamsburgh Savings Bank, Peter Do presented the first collection on the official show calendar on February 8, rethinking “protective” fashion for his sophomore showing at the helm of Helmut Lang. To this effect, Do sent out silk bubble wrap trousers, knit balaclavas emerging from smart suiting, weathered sand-colored denim and soft armor in the form of slouchy puffer jackets.
Marking a tentpole return to New York Fashion Week, the designer (and current CFDA chairman) Thom Browne later closed out the proceedings on Valentine’s Day — and took a moment during his final bow to offer a large, heart-shaped box of chocolates to his partner, the museum curator Andrew Bolton. Despite that moment of romance, Browne’s collection was inspired by Gothic horror and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” specifically. (The actor Carrie Coon had provided an eerie narration of the story, which played throughout the runway show.)
Models — a “school of ravens,” as Browne’s show notes described them — walked through a field seemingly covered in subtly-fragrant white ash powder representing snow; a model wearing a 30-foot-tall puffer jacket stood throughout, as if a tree. The collection dissected traditional black tie tailoring with layering and “cinched” proportions; grungy elements like distressed leather jackets were juxtaposed with formal corsetry and, on occasion, floral notes. Textures throughout were rich, slick and sinuous.
With its enticing riffs on hourglass silhouettes and scaled-up proportions, Browne’s collection was one of a number to play with form and shape to broaden the female figure — and femininity — whether literally or figuratively.
At Luar, which drew buzz both for its fashions and its front row, wide-cut shoulders and oversize sleeves ran throughout; at Sandy Liang, chaste “Sailor Moon”-inspired uniforms and prairie dresses embodied the designer’s aesthetic “growing up a little without sacrificing what you love.”
And models pumping gourd barbells showcased Collina Strada’s delightfully femme take on sports uniforms and gymwear, meanwhile, wearing “elegantly beefed-up silhouettes” — per the show notes — that included lace-trimmed boxing shorts and voluminous jackets mimicking bulging deltoids and biceps.
Then there were the designers updating American dress codes more broadly, whether in their own contexts or anew. Tommy Hilfiger’s return to the runway — attended by the brand’s ambassador Sofia Richie Grange, among other celebrities, and ushered in with an opening performance by Jon Batiste — showcased new takes on prep classics that the brand itself established in the 1990s, with boxy tweed coats, varsity jackets, cashmere dresses and long, bulky scarves.
And Willy Chavarria, who previously held a top spot at Calvin Klein in addition to running his own namesake label, brought a bold vision of American power dressing to the runway through layers and structure, with exaggerated shoulders, sharp lapels and sweeping coats offset by ruffles and sculptural florals, all with Chicano-influenced flair. “I look at periods from the 1930’s Mexican tailoring to 1980’s Calude Montana,” Chavarria told CNN of his inspirations. “Tough leather jackets worn over warm traditional menswear patterns like houndstooth and glen plaid.”
Chavarria’s runway show was accompanied by a fashion film presentation, with a rich, frenetic visual narrative which spoke to community as a respite from the world’s ills.
Like Chavarria, designer Prabal Gurung also took inspiration from community and family, mining his childhood diaries and heritage to create looks — which were richly colored in hues of saffron and vermillion, and embellished with crystals and gold embroidery — that paid tribute to his father’s lineage in Nepal after the death of a family member.
And a similar loss moved Brandon Maxwell, who channeled grief and its emotional stages into a collection that drew from nature and the American Southwest. A trip to the region, Maxwell told CNN, “really softened a lot in me — maybe it sounds really ‘woo woo,’ but in the nature I could understand that through storms and droughts and rains and fires and all the things that sort of things live on in whichever way you choose them to.”
In one of the week’s most anticipated shows, Paris-based designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin made his New York debut with an enchanting collection inspired by the once-taboo photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, progressing from applique florals and wispy transparent fabrics to shimmering crystal mesh gowns to full-on leather bondage styles.
De Saint Sernin’s designs have often rewritten gendered dress codes, and he told CNN that his clothes show how “the evolution and competence you can gain with your gender and your identity is an exploration that you do your whole life.”
Scroll down to see this season’s runway highlights, updated throughout the week.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Ana Navarro, a long-time co-host of The View, posted on her Instagram Thursday an old photo of nude Melania Trump as a way to troll her husband’s supporters, saying: “You wanna go low? ... I’ll happily go 20,000 leagues under the sea.”It was a picture from 2000 featured in British GQ, five years before Donald Trump married her.Navarro also included a picture of both Trumps partying with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, also from 2000. Her explanation for posting these images was that it wa
Céline Dion and Lady Gaga are performing a duet at the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony. Here's how much they are reportedly being paid for one song.
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a marathon testimony on Wednesday that investigators still do not know if former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel during his attempted assassination.Twice during the hours-long session, Wray told lawmakers that the FBI was still working to determine what exactly struck the former president on his right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My understanding is that either it [a bullet] or some shrapnel is wha
Donald Trump ditched his ear bandage for his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. The former president’s right ear returned to public life after being injured during the assassination attempt on the former president on July 13.The former president’s large bandage became an impromptu fashion statement during the Republican National Convention with some attendees donning DIY wound dressings. Following the convention, Trump swapped out his bulky white gauze for a thin n
Kamala Harris’ campaign trolled Donald Trump after his appearance on Fox News Thursday morning with a statement attacking his age and criminal conviction.The Republican gave his two-cents to Fox & Friends on a range of issues over the course of a roughly 30-minute interview, variously describing President Joe Biden as a “problemmed man” and slamming Harris as “real garbage.” Harris for President quickly hit back, releasing a: “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance.”“After wat
Prince Harry has revealed the terrifying reason he won't bring his wife the Duchess of Sussex, to the UK, in a shocking new interview. Find out more here...