The Tent Parties That Inspired New York Fashion Week
Images of '7th on Sixth' are a delicious dive into proto-fashion week debauchery
Before the emergence of what we now know as New York Fashion Week, there was “New York’s 7th on Sixth”: the original version of the event. It was ripe with celebrities, actors, and photographers, and took place in tents in Bryant Park.
“7th on Sixth” Tents in Bryant Park in 1998
Previously, fashion shows has been decentralized: designers would self-organize presentations in showrooms, big lofts, and clubs. After witnessing the concrete ceilings of a Micheal Kors show disintegrate into the laps of supermodels and editors, the executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Fern Mallis, set out to modernize things.
A Nicole Miller show takes place inside Bryant Park Tents
Thus was born “7th on Sixth”, which would later morph into CFDA’s New York Fashion Week as we now know it.
Among the first designers to show included Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Anna Sui, Carolina Herrera, Isaac Mizrahi, and Todd Oldham.
The evidence of the time has a magical aura: I’d suggest there’s something special that happens when everyone knows exactly where the party’s at. Capacity was limited and velvet rope culture was very much alive. Events crawled with celebrities: pre-Kim K Hilton sisters, early career Beyonce, actors, and New York’s finest. Afterparties at the nearby W hotel would become the stuff of legends, and early celebrity street style was born as swarms of photographers documented it all as it happened.
Many delicious artifacts of the era remain, such as these images backstage at Todd Oldham’s 1998 show: Kevyn Aucoin carefully prepares Cindy Crawford (yes, these made me emotional). Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts and Ben Stiller canoodle.
Barbara Walters attends Oscar De La Renta’s show in 1994 at Bryant Park
Jay-Z and Beyonce watch Naomi Campbell at a runway event in 2003