New York Fashion Week cheat sheet: Spring/Summer 2025

With a full calendar, and without any centralised venue, the CFDA has made some adjustments to this season to make it easier on attendees who find themselves running up and down the island of Manhattan and over to Brooklyn with little reprieve to catch the next show. No show will start after 8pm to make for earlier nights, and efforts have been made to space out as much as possible. Many brands that typically show in Brooklyn (Willy Chavarria, Luar) are also showing in Manhattan this year. Yet there’s still no getting around the fact that brands will show where they want (looking at Ralph Lauren), or where they may be able to score a deal to help with costs.

Enter: the bus. Last season, Vogue Business editor-at-large Christina Binkley wrote that New York Fashion Week needed a mom. The logistical hurdles of getting to and from shows had taken a toll on attendees, and can disadvantage designers caught in the lurch. This piece gets some credit for the CFDA’s efforts to offer a sponsored bus service that can ferry editors, buyers and other attendees around the show circuit, says Kolb. It wasn’t easy — in July, it was still without a sponsor. But Shop with Google came through as a partner, and the bus will go from show to show with both power outlets and wifi.

“Everything we do at the CFDA requires support from partners — we’re a non-profit, and we’re in this for the long haul. We don’t look at profit and loss. We don’t have any choice. It’s an honour to coordinate fashion week,” says Kolb. “To the extent that there’s more space for us to take more ownership, we’ve stepped up this season.”

Promotion has also stepped up. For the first time, the CFDA has partnered with Rockefeller Center to stream this season’s NYFW shows (in real time, if possible, or in a later broadcast) on a screen taking over the skating rink space. The goal, says Kolb, is to bring the energy of the runways beyond the show slots. “When Thom [Browne] became chairman, he was very interested in the value fashion week brings to New York,” he says. “Fashion week can be a bit inaccessible, outside of maybe social media. This is a front row, live experience.”

Today, the shows are preceded by another public display: the CFDA partnered with Vogue on the Fashion For Our Future march, inviting the fashion industry to come together and encourage voter registration ahead of November’s presidential election.

Does Kolb see the election playing a role in the week’s runways? If past election years prove anything, it will be felt. The CFDA is providing members with a toolkit that has advice on navigating the moment. “One thing in my opinion that separates American fashion from our global counterparts, is this integration of activism and social responsibility into their work,” Kolb says.

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