Fashion’s A-List Face a Dilemma. Do They Go To New York Fashion Week, the Oscars—or Both?

On 7 a.m. the morning after the Oscars, Booth Moore will get on a plane from Los Angeles to New York, to cover the rest of fashion week. As WWD’s Executive Editor for the West Coast, Moore will be joining the party a little late. Though the six day bonanza begins the weekend of the Academy Awards, Moore has to stay in LA at first to attend Tom Ford’s show.

The chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has headed west for winter, opting to hold his runway far from SoHo’s Spring Studio hub of galleries, where most others present.

“Someone asked me the other day how I could justify showing in LA as I am now the Chairman of the CFDA, and I reminded them that the CFDA stood for the Council of Fashion Designers of America and not the council of Fashion Designers of New York,” Ford told the trade site Business of Fashion. A representative for the CFDA declined to comment to The Daily Beast.

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True, but of course, NYFW stands for New York Fashion Week, which seems to be a minor detail for Ford and other designers like Jeremy Scott, Telfar Clemens, and Tommy Hilfiger, who have also absconded to European cities for their shows (Paris, Florence, and London, respectively).

“I would imagine that some of the New York designers might be feeling a little overshadowed,” Moore told The Daily Beast. “Especially those showing during the weekend and Friday. For example, Jeremy Scott’s show was scheduled on Friday late in the day in New York, and he moved it to Paris instead because he would have been competing with Tom Ford in LA, who is likely to draw a lot of editors and influencers.”

Thanks to a trimmed awards season, Sunday night will host both the Oscars and a full day of fashion shows. “The big difference is that designers who are normally able to pull big celebs for their front row likely won’t be able to get the same names they typically do for their shows,” Tyler McCall, the editor-in-chief of Fashionista, wrote in an email. “I’ve noticed a few people changed their typical time slots so as not to conflict with the Oscars.”

One upshot? Hollywood’s biggest night might give up-and-comers the type of movie script moment they have always dreamed of. “I feel like younger designers have a chance to shine over the weekend,” McCall added.

Stylist, fashion editor, and TV host George Kotsiopoulos added that even during past years when the events have not overlapped celebrity stylists tend not to pull Oscar gowns from New York runways. “They’ll wear something from a haute couture show, maybe from Paris or Milan, but not so much New York,” Kotsiopoulos said. “New York doesn’t have the chops that the Europeans do.”

One upshot? Hollywood’s biggest night might give up-and-comers the type of movie script moment they have always dreamed of. “I feel like younger designers have a chance to shine over the weekend,” McCall added.

To a lesser extent, there is the chance that the Democratic debate on Friday, Feb. 7 or the New Hampshire primary the following Tuesday, Feb. 11 might impact the denizens of guests in Gucci headbands and Ganni prairie dresses. One Vogue article that hinges on self-parody gave tips on “How to Talk Politics During Fashion Week,” as if guests have conversations with their seatmates about anything other than how the show is taking forever to start.

“I don’t see fashion week being disrupted necessarily by political events.” Moore suggested. “I would expect a handful of political statements, whether it’s things on people’s seats at shows urging them to vote, or non-profits being highlighted in literature or handouts at shows, and t-shirts on the runway.”

A break with tradition gives designers permission to try something new. “The idea that everyone’s going to present a show in the same tent, against the same backdrop, at the same time, in the era of social media, doesn’t make much sense anymore,” Moore said. “That doesn’t create the kind of excitement that brands create when they do shows in far-flung locations, at surprise times, or geared to some sort of event. That is more interesting.”

In other words: fashion shows are now made-for-Instagram, not the dwindling numbers of womenswear buyers still employed by the ever-shuttering amount of department stores NYFW was originally conceived for. And what better location to court influencers than LA, home of the Kardashians and countless other personalities with thousands of followers and the same dermatologist?

“I think that the west coast and LA is interesting, because it’s a center for influencer culture, and that’s becoming more important in fashion,” Moore said. “I went to a beauty dinner Tom Ford had here over the summer, for a launch. It was pretty much all influencers. Every brand has to work on different levels–TikToker, YouTuber, they are just as much a celebrity at this point.”

A few hours after speaking with The Daily Beast, she would be on her way to a Missoni pop-up held at the photogenic Pink’s Hot Dogs in the city’s Fairfax District.

Some might see the NYFW identity crisis as a sign of its waning power over the industry it once existed to serve as an official tastemaker. But Instagram-ification could also be its only means of survival.

“Department stores are closing, and those were a huge foundation and point of growth for a lot of New York designers,” said Joy Davis, a host and producer of Unraveled: A Fashion Podcast. “That’s not the CFDA’s fault or the fault of New York Fashion Week, but fashion in general is being overhauled and I don’t know if they know how to handle it.”

“I don’t think the traditional NYFW model makes sense for a lot of designers anymore, especially from a financial perspective, but that doesn’t necessarily mean NYFW has no relevance at all,” McCall added.

Kotsiopoulos, a former Fashion Police host, says he has “no interest” in attending NYFW. “It’s become more sponsorship-based,” he said. “If you’re a busy stylist, unless you’re getting paid to be in New York to do something, you’re not going. Designers are thirsty; everyone’s just trying to make money. People aren’t thinking about being chic or not, they just want to stay in business.”

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