Thom Browne’s show was superlative. Superlative. And honestly, I think we have to be so grateful that he is an American, that we get this really couture level work and concept out of New York, out of the US. And I think sometimes you have to kind of think about for a minute, what do we give the world? And I think it’s like #NewYorkProud because we have to remind ourselves that we probably incubate and give birth to more new talent than arguably almost any other city. Because the industry, meaning retailers, press, everybody encourages them and helps and invests. To me, that’s so quintessentially the American spirit, if you will. The other thing that I think we have to be #NewYorkProud of is that a lot of the brands, I don’t mean just the newcomers, are relatively independent. They may have funding, but they’re not part of big groups. So they have to kind of go it alone. Their shingle is still over the door. Michael Kors still says Michael Kors, Joseph Altuzarra still says Joseph Altuzarra. They’re not part of these houses where the brand, in essence, is almost larger than the designer themselves.
This season in particular was, I think, emotional for everybody. There’s so much going on globally, so much uncertainty, that it was interesting to see how the designers processed that. And while we may have wanted maybe more…let’s call it escapism…designers reacted with things that maybe felt more enduring and things which were somewhat less trend driven. The great new guard coming up, Zankov, Diotima, Christopher John Rogers—I found that group pushed things more. They were more experimental. Khaite was one of the most exciting shows of the week for me, and I think definitely for the team at Bergdorf’s, because it checked all the boxes. The show itself, the presentation was very dramatic and powerful. The styling, the clothes, they were cool, they were aspirational—you wanted to be that girl. And I think that’s what we sometimes want from fashion. I definitely see this as a glass half-full moment. We do have some of our children now showing in Europe, but listen, it’s a free country. People need to do what they think is best for their businesses; this is a global economy. If they feel that they’re going to get more buyers and more eyes on their work, we will miss them and sometimes we have to let them go. Next season, I hope that the mood is going to lighten. I’m hoping that people are going to start to feel a greater sense of freedom, a little more stability. That’s what I hope for. But that’s a universal hope. It goes beyond fashion.
