Saint Laurent off to NYC for June 6 runway show

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Apr 19, 2018

From the Seine to the Hudson River. The house of Saint Laurent will stage a runway show in New York City on Wednesday, June 6, as part of a novel new American runway season.

 
The move to a New York location comes after the house’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello staged his last two triumphant collections in Paris before the city’s most legendary monument the Eiffel Tower, as guests sat on a giant stage on the banks of the Seine.
 
The show will be the first major New York event by the storied marque since founder Yves Saint Laurent staged an epic launch party for his fragrance Champagne in September 1994 at Statue of Liberty. Vaccarello’s predecessor Hedi Slimane did stage a runway show during his tenure in America, though in the Palladium in February 2016 in Los Angeles, where he resided.

The house has declined all comment on the move, but well-informed sources confirmed that Vaccarello will present his next runway show in New York in June. The show will be part of a newly created NYFW season, which is listed on the fashion calendar of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), the governing body of American fashion. The CFDA’s own official website lists the dates June 2 to 6 for the next NYFW, though without even a provisional schedule. However, the organization is itself confused. The registration page on the CFDA website lists July 9 to 12 as the next New York Fashion Week: Men’s, while its Important Dates pages insists that the men’s season will take place on June 8 to 10. Go figure.

The city will not be short of fashion observers during that period, seeing as the CFDA Awards, fashion’s equivalent of the Oscars, will take place on June 4 in the Brooklyn Museum.
 
Since arriving at Saint Laurent in April 2016, Vaccarello has never staged menswear separate from his women’s collections, so it remains likely that this show in the City That Never Sleeps will be co-ed. Saint Laurent staff declined any comment, but insiders confirmed that the show would be in NYC on June 6, and that the house is apparently “still brainstorming” on the exact format and location.
 
They added that this would not be a See Now Buy Now collection, but in part a pre-collection, whose first elements would go into stores in early autumn.
 
This new American season is the brainchild of CFDA CEO Steven Kolb and comes in the wake of the decision by designer Alexander Wang to no longer stage shows during New York’s traditional seasons in February and September and instead hold them in June and January. The goal being to better align with the pre-collection schedule.
 
The CFDA’s long-term idea is to create a definite season around pre-collections and respond to younger fashion houses who think increasingly in terms of multiple merchandise “drops” over the course of a year rather that two established seasons offspring-summer and fall-winter.