It has felt like years since my last fashion week. No matter how many times I heard someone say, “I haven’t seen you in a year and a half!” I couldn’t shake the feeling of an overly long wait—far lengthier than a year and a half.
The last NYFW I attended was in the spring of last year. I still remember how odd the one person who arrived with a face mask on seemed. I remember when it didn’t matter how closely crowded we were as we peeked our cameras and iPhones through the openings of elbows and over each others heads to photograph Gigi Hadid or Issa Rae. A time when holding someone’s hand or reaching for a hug didn’t make me panic. When masks didn’t cover our smiles or muffle the excited scream of a celebrity’s name.
We all seemed to have lost touch with each other since the pandemic. When we hugged it was a mix of relief to see each other alive and a light trace of guilt for not remembering to check on one another, but so much had happened that we all focused on the joy of seeing each other again.
Though the crowds were smaller, the rush and fun of Fashion Week hadn’t changed. I arrived at the very last minute—a normality at this point—even after attending fashion week for more than a decade, the decision to attend each time has always been on a whim for me.
This time, I had talked about attending fashion week a few weeks before, but with such heavy reluctance and nonchalance that I was surprised to see myself actually attend this season. I received text messages from friends who were confused to find me in a New York and even more surprised I had been gone more than a day without anyone knowing. I had quietly slipped out over the weekend and had been so calm about my feelings towards the trip that you could almost say I only attended to behold it again—like an old memory.
And, much like a sweet memory, tasting familiarity was the best part! There was something truly wonderful about being able to hit right back into the swing of things. There were old faces and new faces, and missing faces I wondered about. There were the familiar sounds of skidding sneakers across the floor as we run after one street style look or the other. The usual shouting to our subjects “Look to your left, please!” as we shined a pool of bright camera flashes over them to capture their looks. The car horns blaring as we run carelessly into traffic. The adrenaline pumping in our hearts and the aching feet to show.
Nothing had really changed except the happy smiles, we could no longer see, hiding behind masks.
NYFW SS 22 , Eleven years of shooting Fashion Week.