New York launches its first men's fashion week this Monday

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Jul 9, 2015

A major first for the Big Apple. After London, Florence, Milan and Paris, it's finally New York's turn to celebrate men's fashion. The city will be hosting its very own men's fashion week this 13 to 16 July 2015 at Skylight Clarkson Square in SoHo.

With its main sponsor being e-commerce giant Amazon, the long-awaited event by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), which worked on the project for more than two years to bring it to fruition, more than fifty brands are taking part, either on the runway or as presentations, to reveal their spring/summer 2016 collections.

On the program for this very first "New York Fashion Week: Men's" are big names like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Kors, Thom Browne, Michael Bastian and Tim Coppens, but also young American designers like Orley, Public School, Rag & Bon and Ovadia & Son.

A lot of them have shown on the runway before, in Europe, like John Varvatos, who has been installed in Milan for six years, to catch the attention of the main menswear buyers so as not to be penalized for presenting too late in the season.

In fact, many American labels have presented their menswear collections during New York's womenswear fashion show in September! But few labels, especially the younger ones, can afford to go show in Europe.

Most of them thus had to be content with a showroom presentation, often in July. And for some of them it was even at the same time as their womenswear collection... In short, men's fashion in the past has taken a backseat to women's fashion.

Holding a show dedicated to men should thus give American menswear designers a real presence on the international stage all while giving them an outlet to show off their work to buyers in much better conditions.

It remains to be seen just how successful the show will be, faced with the supremacy of the European events. Some of the major labels have opted not to take the risk of showing only in New York, such as Ralph Lauren, who presented his high end line Purple Label in Milan, and Calvin Klein, who was also present in Milan in June…