“Vogue World: New York is a celebration of all the ways in which fashion is changing,” says Vogue creative editorial director Mark Guiducci. “It comes at a moment when designers have become multidisciplinary creators, innovating how we engage with fashion — even virtually.”

The goal is to take “an age-old brand story and tell it through brand new technology,” says Resh Sidhu, global director of Arcadia, Snap’s creative studio for branded AR. Vogue and Snap will promote the Vogue World event via two lenses inspired by and branded Vogue that can be used worldwide: “A New Stage”, inspired by the Vogue around the World runway, allows people to bring versions of the staging to their own environment, while “Lit Up” enables selfies that “reflect the runway” through a virtual glow based on the sunset and moonrise.

Vogue World and Technology integration

AR try-on has become increasingly popular in fashion and beauty. Brands began by testing makeup and face filters , before graduating to items like shoes and watches. Big names including Gucci, Burberry, Farfetch and Prada have tested shoppable AR try-on, and Snap has worked to position itself as a go-to partner for the industry’s AR endeavors. In June, British Vogue brought a Snapchat experience to Cannes Lions that let visitors try on digital items from brands such as Versace and Dior.

Brands have also tested Snap’s ability to add a “digital layer” to the world around us, as Snap global product lead in AR Carolina Arguelles Navas has said to Vogue Business, through enhancements such as in-store augmentations (such as Nike’s AR archives experience with “artefacts” unlocked via QR codes) or delivering a stack of Louis Vuitton luggage cases.

As physical fashion weeks reconvene in global cities, pop-ups and shows such as AR platform Zero10’s digital retail store in New York and AR fashion artist Doddz’s digital in-person show, are expected to take advantage of improvements in AR technology. The Vogue World experience, for example, uses Snap’s ground and sky segmentation technology, and Snap recently made its try-on tech available to external apps and developers in a bid to deepen relationships with brands and retailers. The experience has has been likened to watching en vogue on a different world. Snap has been a clear leader in using AR for social commerce, and now sees more than 6 billion AR Lens plays daily. As of Snap’s Q1 2022, more than 250 million people used Snap’s AR shopping lenses every day on average.

There’s a 20th anniversary in the Proenza Schouler designers’ imminent future. New York fashion’s perennial It boys Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have been around the block a few times; these days they’re the establishment and a new generation of young talents are vying for the It boy title. How fast that happens!

Arca, the trans musician from Venezuela, opened their show in a loose black tank whose hem was pulled over one shoulder, revealing white silk fringe over her bare midriff and a bubble skirt. From there McCollough and Hernandez explored Latin flourishes, like flamenco ruffles peeking from the hems of generously cut bell bottoms, polka dots of varying sizes decorating twist-front dresses, and piped bell sleeves that extend past the knees. In the past, they’ve tended to cite travel adventures or their tight circle of girlfriends as influences. But after the show, Hernandez wanted to talk about his roots. “I leaned into my Latin identity, I’m Cuban,” he said. That tight circle of friends is going to like these pieces a lot.

The models wore their hair slicked back wet and their skin was dewy. They looked as if they just stepped off a dance floor or climbed out of the sea. With videos of waterfalls projected onto the marble walls of the venue and an ASMR triggering soundtrack to match, the collection felt closer to nature than last season’s. Crochet separates, nipple-freeing sheer lace shirts and dresses, and compact knit pieces that seemed to take their cues from swimwear looked like the work of designers who’d like to hold on to a summer feeling for as long as they can—a relatable instinct on this busy September Friday.

“We’re just talking about the idea of energy, of joy, of sensuality, these things that sometimes we feel are lost in our lives, to be honest, and we’re trying to find a way to get them back,” McCollough said. Twenty years is no small milestone. How do you sustain energy and joy when you’ve been at something that long? McCollough and Hernandez tapped into it this season by working with a community of weavers in Bolivia. “We did it all via email and conversations over the phone,” Hernandez related. “We were able to make four pieces with them and employ them for six months. They were so happy.” But you know who sounded really happy? He did.

It’s been years since New York has seen a fashion production as big as tonight’s Fendi show. Kim Jones and Silvia Venturini Fendi came to town to mark a milestone, the 25th anniversary of the Italian label’s Baguette bag—a bag, said Venturini Fendi, “that does what fashion should do: bring pleasure to people”—and they threw quite a party. The Hammerstein Ballroom was transformed with soft beige carpet and curtain, the rough edges of the rock venue all but buffed away. In the front row, Kim Kardashian, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Naomi Watts held down one end of the bench, and Kate Moss, Shalom Harlow, and Amber Valletta the other. What Grace Jones was doing in the second row is anyone’s guess. Then, of course, there’s what happened on the runway itself.

First, though, a word on the New York connection. Sex & the City made the Baguette famous. “It was almost like a character,” Jones said at a preview. “So I thought let’s do the show here, and let’s add in a few curveballs as we always do.” That Jones is a prodigious collaborator has been well documented, but the match-ups he orchestrated this season were particularly inspired. Tiffany & Co., an LVMH brand like Fendi, was brought in to provide the baguettes—as in diamond baguettes. The double-F logo on the Tiffany blue croc Baguette carried by Bella Hadid was pavéd in the precious stones.

Marc Jacobs and Jones go back to their days together at Louis Vuitton, where Jacobs was something of a serial collaborator himself—see Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Yayoi Kusama—and anyway who is New Yorkier than him? Jacobs’s section riffed on his recent collections with block letter intarsias spelling out FendiRoma rather than his own logo on everything from tracksuits and trucker jackets and matching jeans to an oversize terry robe.

“I called Marc up and asked him if he wanted to design a collection for Fendi. I haven’t been involved at all,” Jones explained. “We worked side by side during fittings. We were doing ours, he was doing his. I’m looking very much at 1997 and I think Mark’s is fresh and now.” Google results for Fendi’s collections from 1997 don’t yield many overlaps between that year and today. Jones was after more of a feeling. “I was thinking about when I was first coming to New York and we would go out clubbing,” he said. Hence the irreverent, high/low mix of sequins and utility jackets, or a shearling sherpa and a mini. He meant what he said about utility. Even beanies and gaiters came with built-in Baguettes, as did many of the garments, those shearling sherpas most temptingly.

For the kicker, Linda Evangelista, who is the current face of Fendi, glided out, resplendent in a Tiffany blue opera cape, with a sterling silver Baguette bag in the crook of her arm. Jacobs, who joined Jones and Venturini Fendi for a bow, encouraged everyone to stand up—not that the crowd needed any convincing.

To the tune of “California Dreaming,” Jeffrey Kalinsky, formerly of iconic retail emporium Jeffrey, appeared on the runway, decked out in jeans and a button down, with a sweater tied in a very editorial way around his chest. With a Britney Spears-style head-mic, Kalinsky began speaking to the crowd gathered on the first grey and rainy day New York City had seen in months. “This is one of the most joyous things I’ve ever had the privilege to do,” he began. “I love the word classic, and I love the word modern, and to create modern classic clothing, I think is the greatest thing you can do. It’s timeless, it’s ageless, it’s polished, it has integrity, and unfortunately… it will stay in your closet too long.” The crowd laughed; a relaxed and easygoing mood was quickly established as the essence of the new Theory.

A Theory collection is a Theory collection is a Theory collection, but there were definite signs that this was a new vision at the label. Boxy jackets came with pre-rolled sleeves so that anyone can just put them on and have them fit the exact right way; dresses with easy A-line silhouettes and truly gorgeous ballerina necklines were elegant without leaving behind a sense of subtle sex appeal. Kalinsky called out the coach jacket as “one of the most important silhouettes.” It appeared in a variety of colors and fabrics, each imbued with a different mood. In one of the opening looks, he showed it in bonded satin worn with a cropped top and micro shorts, later on it appeared in carnation pink nylon, worn over a matching carnation pink shirtdress but in cotton, as well as in a color he called blue iris but was definitely edging closer to purple. The saturated color palette was specific—carnation pink, ruby red, white, cream and black—and packed a big punch in the simple silhouettes, especially the low-rise, double pleated, wide legged trousers. Those were made from a material that Kalinsky kept charmingly referring to as “good wool” and were very much of the moment. They’d look equally good paired with a shrunken T-shirt or with Theory’s signature button down shirt.

“For me color is very intuitive,” Kalinsky said after the show. “I’ve been obsessed with hot pink for a few years, and when I started at Theory, I knew right away that I wanted to infuse it into the collection. We built the rest of the color palette around the carnation pink, adding in blue iris, red grenadine, and bright orange alongside beautiful neutrals.” The pieces made in bonded satin seemed to capture his ideal for the modern Theory woman the best, especially the black slip dress with a perfect rounded neck and a below-the-knee length. It’s exactly the kind of dress that would enjoy a long, fruitful life in any woman’s closet.

Welcome to Simon Miller Island. Here you can delve into the dreamt-up world of Chelsea Hansford, where models are on a natural sugar high, wearing candy wrapper heels, swirling taffy prints on their cotton cover-ups, and carrying coconut flake-inspired bags. “I imagined what a candy village would be like on Simon Miller Island. Everything was inspired by the textures of tropical, natural candies and candy wrappers,” said Hansford in her collection presentation space.

Hansford is no stranger to creating an It item. Her bubble clogs and disco drop earrings are some of her most popular pieces. And this season, she has beach-ready versions of those items with the new bubble wedge and coral necklaces. But Hansford is also ready to create an It clothing piece for her brand. “We are seeing a tremendous amount of success with our logo tanks,” she said. “It’s like an opening price point, but just fun and lively. So I went hard on developing a more sophisticated logo series of knitwear. It’s universal, but still has a very cool logo on it.” The hard work seems to be paying off. Gigi Hadid just wore a red version of the new knit set to the US Open, helping to blow it up on social media as the next must-have from the brand.

With her upcoming nuptials on her mind, Hansford created her first ever bridal look. Inspired by vermicelli noodles and licorice, she made a wedding dress fit for a bride getting married on Simon Miller Island (Hansford wore the mini version during the presentation). As for the groom, he can wear the reversible satin souvenir jacket, just as her fiancé did.

“Yes, I grew up in Berkley—I’m a hippie at heart,” Raquel Allegra says, by way of justifying the inspiration for her spring collection. Zooming in from her studio in California, she says, “I don’t know if anyone in the room there has had an experience that has shifted their mind and shifted the way they look at the world through having a relationship with ancient plants.” The world of psychedelics and mycelium is certainly having a moment—it’s been referenced at Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen in recent seasons—but Allegra’s take was uniquely her own. Specifically, she was thinking about beauty: “What’s the lens through which we perceive what we’re looking at?” For this collection, the lens is “love, color, and comfort.”

The color and comfort parts have always been key principles in Allegra’s collections, and most of it felt familiar: dip-dye dresses in shades of pink and yellow like a sunset or blues like the inside of a wave; patchwork sweaters with “overlapping globes of color”; and raw edges. A caftan in Allegra’s signature tie-dye, in shades of yellow and mustard, was a youthful take on the trend, with its kangaroo pocket and contrasting fabric. She also brought back the technique of creating prints on embossed fabrics, as in the shirtdress with swirls of greens and blues and reds like watercolors dissipating in a cup of water; they were overlaid over a jacquard pattern that resembled earth formations and worn like a robe over a matching T-shirt and leggings.

The watercolor motif was also present on a splatter-print suit whose print was actually Raquel Allegra’s name blown up into oversized proportions. “I’ve always struggled with the idea of wearing a logo,” she says. “To me, it needed to mean something. A name can mean something, obviously, but also it felt important to say something more than just the name or initials. I scrawled my name in really big writing, and then I dipped my hands in the ink, and I had this really fun afternoon of exploration with ink on the fabric. That was a way that I felt comfortable putting a logo on our garment.” She also created a monogram out of her initials, whose shape resembles a snake eating its own tail (“it represents the continued flow of the life cycle”), that showed up on the sleeve of a striped shirt dip-dyed in black and worn with matching trousers and a tie (also embroidered with her monogram). They seemed a little out of place in a collection full of breezy, color-drenched dresses and skirts, but it made sense to the designer.

“What’s really important to me about the way we put the collection together is that it not just be one thing—you know, we’re dynamic,” she says. “To me [the model in that look is] a rock star. When I go to shows and I see someone on the stage that is expressing themselves, like pure creativity, to me that is also godly.” She adds, “There’s godliness to being in your specific purpose.” And Raquel Allegra would be the first one to tell you she’s found hers.