When Love’s In Fashion

Chapter 3

I got invited to cover fashion week hoes! Yeah you heard right; this is an inside look at New York Fashion Week SS16 from the perspective of yours truly. Fash Ho live and direct from these New York streets.

Fashion Week is the biggest fashion event in the world. I’m still wildin’ from gettin’ this invite. You know I just finished college right? And every year I been watching this sh*t online and following fashion police and what not. It’s a trip to actually be here people. Today I have Carl Marefield, CHANTYXPUMA, and, Fleezy, and a bunch of other huge American designer names whose shows I probably won’t be able to attend.

Fashion is my passion that’s obvious, but the buzz I get from sitting in the front row of fashion week, opposite some of the biggest names in fashion or celeb spotting outside the show really makes me stop for a second and realize just how much I really love my job!

Getting ready for New York Fashion Week as a Fash Ho is deadass crazy. I am representing my brand at this kind of an event which means my hair and makeup need to be on point. So yeah first order of business was to get my hair did, my nails did…there are beauty lounges and freebies that come with fashion week so that part was easy. My makeover was courtesy of Toni & Guy for the hair and Manicube for the nails. I chose to wear this really cute black Two Tone Ruffle Dress from Carl Marefield for my first look of the day.

After taking a look around the collections at the designer showrooms at Mercedes Benz New York Fashion Week headquarters in Milk Studios, I got in the nice car that was put at my disposal by the Boston Consulting Group and headed to my next stop on the SS16 fashion train. Fashion week can be late nights, early starts and a ton of outfit changes. If you’re not a New Yorker you need to find yourself a place to stay: I am a New Yorker but you know that the lower East side is too far away. So I booked in to The Highline Hotel on Tenth Avenue.

The first show of the day was Carl Marefield. This is a huge deal in terms of fashion week shows and was held in The Gallery, Skylight Clarkson Sq. I love the atmosphere of a show of this scale and some huge names are attracted to them. I even got to chat briefly with Corinne Edgeworth, Fashion Editor of American Vogue about the recent Tiana cover and how she takes fashion forward. She was watching the show with her Fashion Director, Kris Anderson.

There was definitely a doll chic theme going on at Carl Marefield. A lot of white and gray with a couple of pops of black and a maroon type red. I loved the ruffled styles coming off the runway in this show, a sure win when you’re in need of a cool linen dress on a hot summers day.

CHANTYXPUMA was next on the list and boy did they make an impact. Held in the 23 Wall Morgan House, we were greeted by an ‘arctic urban forest’ where models walked down a chrome catwalk in a series of bold monochrome designs which looked to be influenced by the same urban street style that the singer has become famous for herself.

Loud music and athleisure wear were a huge part of this show’s story. I am literally in love with so many of their outfits, especially the fierce slouchy hoodie and thigh-high boots with Puma written across the top, can’t wait to rock this next season!

This show was all about neutral colors and had strong influences from Chanty’s own style. Hoodies, sweat shirt and a sport shoe-boot hybrid featured heavily. Fingers crossed they will be on schedule next year as I can’t wait to see what comes next for this pop star turned designer.

For my last show of the day I headed over to Skylight at Moynihan Station at 360 West 33rd Street to see one of the newer style fashion week shows, a presentation by Fleezus. Presentations are way more informal and basically involve the models standing gracefully around as though they were mannequins in a shop window. Press and buyers can walk around the room taking snaps and look over the models closely.

Designers are going for this type of show more often now. It costs a lot less to put on and the venue doesn’t have to be as large. More press can be invited as the duration lasts for a couple of hours and you can come and go as you please without missing anything.

The theme didn’t seem much differed from Fleezy season one or two…..sometimes I think that Fleezus is punking us with this so called fashion line! Fleezy Season 3’s collection was so definitely some homeless person chic y’all. Really androgynous with lots of browns and natural colors in general. I liked the body suits though. Very comfortable looking for just lounging on the sofa watching Netflix. Also the models were pretty diverse which was excellent.

Now for the fun bit! New York Fashion Week parties….Trust me after a loooong day running all over central New York. You will be past in need of a drink. Heading over to a fashion week party where all the drink is free, the music is great and you get to hang out with a ton of flamboyant personalities and bump in to fab friends is such a great end to the day.

 Imma head over to the Bowery Hotel to see what’s what. Maybe drop in at all the parties with my partner in crime, Sascha. Tomorrow’s another day! Check out the photos over the jump. Which New York Fashion Week show would you love to go to?

Comment below!

Elmira read through her rough draft, one ear on Sascha as she suggested eating places to pop into before the after parties. Elmira was quite hungry which was the only reason that a hundred per cent of her concentration wasn’t on the blog post she was working on. She wasn’t sure if she should…er deurbanize it a little. But this was her blog and she’d always written like this. Her audience knew it. And wasn’t that the whole point of using her? The fact that she reached this audience? She shrugged her shoulders and decided she wouldn’t change her style. If BCC had a problem with it, they could speak up. Speaking of BCC…Elmira leaned back in her seat thinking about the Group’s CEO. What did he want with her?

Their coffee ‘date’ had been a little crazy Elmira thought.

“Nice place.” the CEO had commented, “Not really my usual haunts but nice.”

“Let’s get a table.” Elmira said heroically refraining from rolling her eyes.

“Right.” agreed Sven.

They both sat at the closest available table that they could find. It had a window nearby, too, so they had a lovely view of the flowers growing outside.

“They certainly take very good care of their flowers.” Elmira noted.

“Yeah.” Sven agreed.

At that moment, a waitress came to their table.

“What can I get you two?” she asked.

“I’ll have a caramel latte,” Elmira answered. “What about you, Sven?”

“Anything’s good.” he replied.

“Coming right up!” beamed the waitress as she left to get their beverages.

As they waited, Elmira fished out her iPad and noticed that Sven did the same. He didn’t try to get her to engage with him, just let her get on with her writing while he did…whatever it was with his iPad. Elmira was a little miffed at that. I mean yeah sure he’d promised he wouldn’t interfere with her writing but she hadn’t really expected him to keep his word. It was supposed to be an excuse to have coffee with her!

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…’she thought.

“Um…Sven?” Elmira asked.

He looked up at her with surprise. “Yeah?” he replied.