Suzy Menkes,
a fashion journalist, remembers that the former New York Fashion Week is sweet: It happens in the clear October and sweet time, while these emotional words are not suitable for New York of this year. The spring came too late in 2013; the whole city still huddled in the chilly winter when the Fashion Week began. Even worse, the storm came as the same as weekend. It rained on Friday morning and then snowed. Just a few hours, the heavy snow had covered the city. The whole city was controlled by the snowstorm named Nemo.
But Nemo cannot stop the pace of the Fashion Week, everything continues. In the show, we can find it is not a decision that violates the season to have autumn winter series in winter. On the streets, the people who view the show still don’t give up their “show armor”: high heels, mini skirt, resin beads and stockings which is so thin that we can see the skin…There is no season in fashion, so who scares about the snowstorm. But it has brought troubles to the people who are still on their journey. Because of the cancellation of the flight, European buyers and journalists have to break their trip and temporarily stop going to New York.
The history of New York Fashion Week can be traced back to the 1940s. In 1943, under the organization of Eleanor Lambert, an exhibition which is called Media Week comes into being. This is the first Fashion Week in New York, as well as the first organized Fashion Week in the world. It was hold both in Pierre Hotel and Plaza Hotel. Editors and journalists were invited. While buyers who are noble today only have the chance to choose clothes in the designers’ show. Eleanor Lambert’s Media Week gave a chance to contact the United States designers for the fashion editors and journalist. To be more exact, it gave a chance to the US designers to show themselves to the whole world.
Before the Media Week, United States already have a decade of fashion show history. In 1903, a shop named Ehrich Brothers in New York has organized a fashion show. This is the first Fashion Show in the United States; its aim is to attract the middle-class housewives to go to the shop. In 1910, many large stores start to hold their own fashion show as an effective means of sales promotion. While in the 1920s, the fashion show has become a mainstream. Compare to today’s fashion show, it is more dramatic. These shows always have a theme, some with exotic elements such as Paris, Persia, Russia and China.