What SHOWstudio Are Looking Forward To: Digital Fashion Week + NYFW A/W 22 Womenswear

DIGITAL FASHION WEEK NEW YORK, Thursday 10-Sunday 13 February

The past two years has seen the fashion industry take a bumper ride towards the metaverse and Web 3.0. Brands including Gucci, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Stefan Cooke have all launched NFTs, virtual fashion for video games, and interactive spaces. Digital fashion platforms and designers such as DRESSX, Auroboros and The Fabricant have emerged as some of the leading players. In short, however, there's still everything to play for. With New York lying low since the start of the pandemic, skipping January menswear altogether last month and moving to an all-year round system titled The American Collections Calendar, Digital Fashion Week New York holds the promise of injecting innovation back into the fashion landscape across the pond. The four day event includes panel discussions on topics such as fashion and the gaming industry together with NFTs, a virtual fashion exhibition featuring digital fashion designers such as Tony Murray aka @to.mu.lab, a 'fashion show in the metaverse' and live screenings of digital fashion animations. We hope it lives up to what it promises.

PROENZA SCHOULER, Friday 11 February @ 21:00 GMT

This season marks a new chapter for NYFW sweethearts Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. In a recent feature titled 'The Nine Lives of Proenza Schouler' for Business of Fashion, the brand's epic highs and lows set the stage for an equally epic return. Having wiped their Instagram at the beginning of the year, Hernandez told BoF's Laura Sherman that 'We’re releasing ourselves of the baggage of the past'. Under a new executive, they are placing a greater focus on merging their runway show pieces and commercial products - in the past the brand drew most of their income from the 'PS1' satchel handbag. They've long been lusted over by women about town such as Chloë Sevigny, Liv Tyler and Laura Dern since they won the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund Award in 2004 and had their graduate collection bought by Barney's. S/S 22 focused on sculptural dresses, a whole lotta fringing and quirky prints, and for A/W 22 they've teased patent slip-ons akin to wetsuit shoes. A brand for the sophisticated woman who has money to spend, this season we're expecting something new as the designers return to the schedule to stage a runway show.

AREA, Sunday 13 February, Time TBC

New York brand AREA are all about the showstoppers. Slinky crystal chain mail dresses, references to the Space Age (A/W 19), couture shapes (S/S 20), and Madame Grès-style pleats (A/W 20), and a couture debut for S/S 21. Over the years since their launch in 2013, designers Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszczyk have gone from club kid to being worn by Indya Moore, Michele Obama and Beyoncé, with pieces which go from night to day. Fashion editor Olivia Singer previously described the brand as having ‘A distinctly millennial glamour that directly speaks to the references of both the duo and their peers, sort of subverted but mainly just celebrated'. One for the Euphoria fans, the label will be releasing their collection on the digital schedule. A fashion film would be the perfect space to explore the fantasy which underpins AREA, but we'll have to wait and see.

PETER DO, Tuesday 15 February @ 18:00 GMT

Staging their NYFW debut last September to critical claim, all eyes will be on womenswear designer Peter Do this season. SHOWstudio's fashion critic M-C Hill recently described the brand's essence as being about 'warmth, diversity, relaxed chic', with delicate floral embroideries reminiscent of paintings and crystalised basting details on white coats. The label is designed by An Nguyen, who previously worked under Phoebe Philo and Derek Lam. With model Maggie Maurer often playing muse and Zendaya and Solange as fans, expect clean, sharp tailoring with a twist.

TELFAR, Wednesday 16 February @ 23:00 GMT

Telfar Clemens' mantra is that fashion is for everyone. If you're not familiar with the brand, you'll have likely come across the sell-out 'Bushwick Birkin' tote bag seen on anyone and everyone. Despite recent stints designing for UGG, the Liberia Olympics team, and the infamous GAP partnership which never came to be (not by the fault of Clemens), the last Telfar runway show was pre-pandemic back in January 2020 at Pitti Uomo in Florence. That A/W 20 show was staged with a lavish medieval-style banquet where models stomped across tables, and was intended to be the beginning of the brand's world tour, but COVID put a stop to that. Having launched Telfar TV last year, the label is accustomed to operating outside of the New York fashion system alongside peers such as Shayne Oliver who were shunned by the white-centric elitist industry. Telfar's return to the schedule, then, is a highly anticipated one.

Stay tuned for SHOWstudio's coverage and reviews of all the shows.