Don’t let the “New York” in New York Style Week (NYFW) idiot you. NYFW is a worldwide affair. Going down each September and October, folks from everywhere in the world descend on the Large Apple to take an enormous fashion-filled chunk. The primary occasions happen at Spring Studios in Decrease Manhattan with flocks of fashions, influencers, stylists, and media sorts additionally converging on SoHo, Tribeca, and, extra just lately, Harlem. With vogue groundbreakers and historical past makers like Dapper Dan, April Walker, and Lana Turner to name its personal, Harlem is not any newjack to the style world. Between the Harlem Renaissance and the beginning of hip hop, Harlem has used fashion as a conduit of creativity, validation, and illustration to make a reputation for itself.
I kicked off my Style Week expertise at Chase Financial institution on 125 Road on the “Range on the Runway: Panel Dialogue + Style Mixer” offered by the mother-daughter duo, Tandra Birkett and Yvonne Jewnell, the creators of Harlem Style Week (HFW). The centerpiece attraction of the night was a fireplace chat that includes Nina Parker, the Emmy-nominated host and journalist who jumpstarted her profession spilling the tea on TMZ and is now the present host of Friday Night time Vibes on TBS. After enduring years of slim pickings and struggling to seek out something fly on the racks in her dimension for her myriad purple carpet internet hosting tasks, Parker launched her personal saucy, size-inclusive vogue line, The Nina Parker Assortment, and have become the primary Black girl to have a plus-size clothes line with Macy’s.
Nicole Parker images
Two nights earlier than her presentation on HFW’s runway on the Harlem College of the Arts, she sat, sporting all black in an open glass room, only a few yards away from the beeping ATMs, with a small group of Black people keen to listen to about her experiences as a plus-sized girl who made a reputation for herself and regarded good whereas doing so. When requested why she selected Harlem because the place for her NYFW debut, the California native mentioned: “I see ladies who seem like me proper down the road once I’m in Harlem, so I’m all the time going to gravitate to that … And I’ve mentioned up to now I’ve been anti Style Week, so Harlem accepting me has felt like a hug.” She continued, “As a substitute of worrying about all the time being on prime, I concentrate on being ready … I made the choice to not put the keys of success in anyone else’s palms, however my very own.”
Subsequent up, the MMM Style Present. MMM stands for “Malcom Meets Martin,” which can be the identify of the group block group that serves West a hundred and twentieth Road between Lenox Avenue (Malcolm X Boulevard) and Mt. Morris Park (which borders Marcus Garvey Park). That is the third yr that the residents of this tranquil and tight-knit block have produced this huge expertise centering group and tradition proper alongside garments and couture. What makes this occasion so particular is the extent of accessibility—the presentation is free and outdoors, making it simple for anybody and everybody to attend, which is large for vogue, nonetheless probably the most gatekept industries on this planet. Secondly, many, if not most, of the folks concerned—from the fashions to the sound technicians to the make-up artists—have been people who reside within the neighborhood.
Half block social gathering, half vogue present, and half expertise present, this yr’s occasion featured 10 designers from the tri-state space, together with a few of Harlem’s most interesting, equivalent to 5001 Flavors, Harlem American, and Thomas Heath, to call a number of. MMM Style Present got down to delight all of our senses with food and drinks (for VIP visitors) and poetry and music throughout set breaks between displays that featured spoken phrase artists, a rap efficiency by JSwiss, in addition to a faucet dancing quantity carried out by Jabowen Dixon that might’ve made Gregory Hines proud. I heard that Dapper Dan was in attendance and noticed Vy Higginsen (Mama Basis for the Arts), Lana Turner (vogue icon), DarDra Coaxum (HRLM Champagne), and Sharene Wooden (Harlem Haberdashery) within the entrance row alongside the runway, which spanned greater than half the block or roughly 300 toes. Slightly below the timber, the manufacturing crew created a cover with white chiffon cloth that regarded like a bridal robe prepare of pillowy clouds floating within the moonlit night time sky. It might have been a DIY affair, but it surely felt grand—even magical.
Tressi Colon, one in all three founders of the MMM Style Present shared, “Once we first stepped out in 2023, this vogue present was merely a imaginative and prescient, an concept that one in all our Co-Founders, Dr. Cheryl Smith, needed to carry artwork, fashion, and tradition proper onto our open avenue. Now, three years later, we proceed this vogue present as a result of it’s extra than simply vogue. It’s about unity, creativity, and celebrating Harlem … Every year, we’re reminded that when neighbors come collectively, we will create one thing extraordinary.”
In the midst of Cool Pig NYC’s presentation on the MMM vogue present, the ability went out. The viewers began clapping rhythmically and chanting “No music! No music!” creating their very own beat and melody, permitting the fashions to nonetheless stroll with a backing monitor. That is the fantastic thing about vogue week programming that takes place in Harlem: The designs turn out to be vectors and the runways act as channels, all transmitting the unimaginable vitality of a storied group that facilities tradition as resilience.
