New York Fashion Week is here, and it looks a lot different than before.

What You Need To Know

  • Most of the fashion presentations will be streamed online, but a handful of shows will be live

  • Six-feet social distancing must be maintained by everybody at all times

  • Extra PPE for hair and makeup artists, hand sanitizers throughout the venue and a detailed health screening will also be in place

  • Experts said livestreaming may make Fashion Week more accessible to a wider, more diverse audience

“Definitely no cheek kisses and handshakes and hugs," Georgie Versi, the event director for IMG Fashion, told NY1.

IMG Fashion is the group that produces Fashion Week in the city, a gathering that typically hosts nearly 100 events, and brings in thousands of people, as fashion designers show off their new collections.

Versi said it's been a tough six months planning the bi-annual event, initially, not knowing if it would happen at all, and then learning a few weeks ago that Governor Cuomo's office would allow it, with strict safety guidelines.

"Six-feet social distancing must be maintained by everybody at all times, extra personal protective equipment for hair and makeup artists, especially once they're working with the talent, we have hand sanitizers and dispensers all throughout the venue and a very detailed health screening that everybody undergoes when they arrive," she explained.

There will be fewer events this year, meaning fewer people hired to work.

Most of the fashion presentations and seminars will be produced at Spring Studios in Lower Manhattan and streamed online, but a handful of shows will be live, on an outdoor terrace runway, with models tested for COVID-19, and a limited number of guests.

The first of the shows featured the designer Jason Wu.

Notably though, big-name designers like Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors aren't taking part in the official Fashion Week; and many, like Amy Smilovic, of Tibi, are debuting new collections online.

Smilovic shot her Spring 2021 lookbook at her home in Connecticut.

“COVID just changed for us the way that we thought about executing in it," she said." And it made us much more hands on and much more scrappy and then ultimately probably more authentic than anything would have ever been in the past.”

But what does this mean for the future?

Tibi already had been shying away from runway shows in favor of more casual presentations, a trend that Fashion and Costume Historian Shelby Ivey Christie hopes will grow, even when indoor events are allowed again.

She said livestreaming makes fashion more accessible to a wider, more diverse audience. 

In a way, the pandemic may actually may help to keep Fashion Week relevant.

“I don’t think it’s a the nail in the coffin, but I think it is showing fashion's resistance sometimes to change, especially in an environment where a lot of things are heritage or legacy, it’s very hard to move the needle forward towards innovation because there’s a sense of this is how it’s always been done," Christie said.

One thing that won't change, though, is the desire to see what's new in the fashion world.

You can catch most of the events on NYFW.com or on social media, without an invitation.