NEW YORK — If you haven’t received your fashion week invite, don’t worry, because we’re all invited.
You won’t see the normal crowded front row or spot celebrities, but the show will go on.
“This is a fashion week like you have never seen before. We've created a digital tab we call it runway 360,” said Steven Kolb, CEO of Council of Fashion Designers of America.
So, 90 to 95 percent of the shows that are happening in September are going to be digital Virtual shows instead of live events.
“In some incidents, you might have a live stream of a show like Jason Wu. You might have a film, you might have an interview and you might have something as simple as a flat photo shoot and that’s really the beauty of Runway 360,” Kolb said.
There will be some notable names missing from the lineup, like Marc Jacobs and Oscar de la Renta, but Kolb says there will be plenty of fashion to see.
“It's an unusual season because some designers were not able to pull a collection together. So you have some standards, you have Anna Sui, Badgley Mishka, Naeem Khan, Marchersa. Jason Wu and our chairman Tom Ford. He'll be closing the week on Wednesday at 7 p.m.,” said Kolb.
“Most of the indoors will just be staged for virtual streaming of those shows. And then IMG which produces a number of fashion shows is the official venue of Fashion Week. They're going to be doing some rooftop stuff down on spring, but those will be crowds of 25 people or less,” said Kolb.
How’s it going to be different without having George Whipple and Anna Wintour and celebrities in the front row?
“It’s always about the clothes. With due respect to George and Anna, you know, we want people to tune in and see the collections we want the buyers to buy them. We want the customers to get excited about them, but there are going to be some exciting things. You'll see in the Carolina Herrera slot, some interesting idea there, I don't want to give it away,” Kolb said.
This is one year where we all can see the shows together.