New York is a city where you are outside.

This distinguishes the metropolis from other American cities - because Americans like to take the car.

But you move around New York by walking because it's often quicker than getting stuck in rush hour.

This is one of the reasons why New York is a fashion city: the hustle and bustle turns avenues and streets into small catwalks for those who want to represent something in the metropolis.

Caroline O Jebens

Editor in the society department at FAZ.NET.

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The pandemic had hit the city particularly hard, but now people have returned to the streets because the United States is already in a downright endemic mood.

Actually good conditions for the New York Fashion Week, which took place last week - and yet it was under a bad star.

Because important American designers didn't show any collections: Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs didn't plan any shows at all, and Tom Ford canceled at short notice.

Yes, New York is a city for fashionable people, but the market for designers is more relevant overseas.

Ready-to-wear was taken very literally this year by the designers presenting their fall collections: ready to be worn means ready to show - but only as far as it's comfortable.

Because the comfortable is now given a boost by the retreat into the domestic ("homewear").

Going out dresses can be short and colourful, but now they have to be comfortable.

Coats can be narrow and elegant, but must be warm.

A symbol of this: the models for Alaïa wore elegant, dark turtlenecks with collars reaching over their noses.

Chic and useful.

Nevertheless, certain designers interpreted this approach very differently: Michael Kors and Zimmerman sought comfort in glamor and in travel, decadence;

Proenza Schouler and Tory Burch preferred to explore how formality could be carried effortlessly.

Like leaves in autumn

If there's one color that exudes absolute comfort, it has to be camel, and it's the color that's featured the most in this year's collections.

Michael Kors calls it his "favorite color", which is why he has created several monochrome looks with it.

"Resilience, self-confidence, comfort" are the key words he uses to describe his designs at the press conference.

“For me, New York is one of the most resilient cities in the world.

But people here want to go out, party and dress up for it.”

For Kors, that means faux fur coats (“they look deceptively real today”), sequined jersey dresses, high-necked looks with cropped skirts.

Otherwise there is a lot of fauna in colours, fabrics and patterns: monochrome mink brown, canary yellow (you can immediately see Eva Herzigová's iconic fur in front of the Brooklyn Bridge, where Terry Richardson photographed her in 1999) or silver fox grey, with some animal prints in between;

the coats and slips are made of alpaca and cashmere.

The bags are big, because that is the other great longing besides partying: travelling.

Zimmermann, an Australian label, is extremely popular with American stars for its holiday fashion and has dedicated itself to this topos for the collection.

Models are presented as superstitious globetrotters, merging the world's traditional costumes into their boho-chic looks: “We wanted it to be eclectic and fun.

We have embraced the symbols and icons of the zodiac in our details.

Fabric textures deliberately collide in every look.” The deliberate colliding seems unfocused and exuberant: overstyled outfits (sunglasses, hat, headband), a palette of pink, turquoise and beige tones, floral patterns that appear old-fashioned even in an ironically composed mix .