It’s impossible not to feel a slight pall settling over the conclusion of New York Fashion Week. Carly Mark, founder of the five-year-old artsy downtown label Puppets & Puppets, announced that she will be ceasing to show at NYFW and moving operations to London. Monday’s show was her parting gesture and the runway looks will never be put into production. The theater, irony, and playfulness of a Puppets & Puppets show was a sheer delight compared to the cynical corporate-led posturing of much of the US industry’s more successful brands.
The splash and polish, the celebrity front rows at the shows of Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors attract plenty of press, but they are not representative of the future in a city as scrappy and thirsty and striving as NYC. The announcement of Donna Karan’s relaunch doesn’t make one break stride on these mean streets, especially when Marc Jacobs has just celebrated 40 years in business, and even Altuzarra has been around for fifteen. As the US enters an election cycle that looks set to pit two octogenarians against each other for the highest office in the land, is it surprising that fashion is reflecting that? Like a mammal mother, New York Fashion Week is abandoning its offspring shortly after birth, selectively culling the most vulnerable to ensure the strength of its fittest because it doesn’t have the means to nurse both. How do we re-establish the bond with mother?
