During fashion month, the industry gathers at a familiar circuit of brand dinners, afterparties, and late-night events. From The Standard’s rooftops to Caviar Kaspia’s dining room, a handful of venues appear on repeat — season after season, city after city.
The repetition is rarely accidental. What defines a venue’s proximity to fashion typically comes down to a combination of cultural credibility, operational reliability, and tightly held relationships. Some venues inherit their status through decades of relationships with designers and tastemakers; others create it intentionally through community-building and cultural programming.
How this manifests differs greatly depending on the city and by a venue’s history. New York-based PR agency founder Gia Kuan says New York tends to be more “scene-driven”, which allows new spaces like Downtown Manhattan “clubstraunts” People’s and Jean’s to gain traction through mystique and word-of-mouth. Paris and Milan are more rooted in history. For instance, Caviar Kaspia — known for its signature caviar baked potato — opened in Paris in 1927, and has long attracted figures across fashion, art and culture, from Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino Garavani to Karl Lagerfeld and Tom Ford; Sant Ambroeus opened in 1936 in Milan, and has since become an unofficial meeting point for the city’s fashion establishment, including Miuccia Prada, Giorgio Armani and Donatella Versace, and has hosted events with Saint Laurent, Ferragamo, Zegna, Chanel, Balenciaga and more in the past year. Between those poles sit global lifestyle players like The Standard (which has hotels in major fashion capitals such as London and New York) that blend institutional scale with cultural programming.
“Hospitality has shifted from a business standpoint, where margins have gotten razor thin so you have to be very proactive,” says Frankie Carattini, head of events and creative director of People’s, which opened at the end of 2024 and has hosted events from Met Gala afterparties to events for Anna Sui, Thom Browne and Maison Margiela. “People’s feels like a crazy out-of-control environment. But in reality, it’s hyper-controlled and hyper-curated.”
For brands, securing a buzzy event venue is both about marketing and relationship management. The right setting can amplify a brand’s cultural positioning by aligning it with a certain crowd, neighborhood or aesthetic, while exclusive dinners and parties double as VIC clienteling moments, a growing priority for luxury labels focusing on top spenders.
Industry observers say what separates lasting fashion venues from fleeting hotspots is cultural literacy. “A fashion favorite venue understands that it’s part of the brand narrative and not just the backdrop,” says Kuan. “They know how to hold a room of editors, designers, and artists without feeling try-hard. It’s about atmosphere, discretion, and design integrity — but also understanding how fashion actually operates.”
Why fashion proximity matters
For hospitality brands, fashion affiliation brings cultural legitimacy and global visibility. “When people whose tastes and perspectives carry influence have a great experience, that energy travels quickly and creates lasting credibility for the venue,” says Kathryn Florada, events director at Jean’s restaurant and club in New York, which has hosted Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s Met Gala afterparty, Louboutin and GQ’s New York Fashion Week event, Willy Chavarria’s CFDA Awards afterparty, and more.
This halo effect makes it easier for a venue to grow and expand. “Fashion houses and their illustrious guests are global trendsetters, and their presence naturally amplifies Caviar Kaspia’s aura,” says Ramon Mac-Crohon, CEO of Caviar Kaspia, which will host the launch dinner tied to Assouline’s new coffee table book with The Mark Hotel this season, but has also hosted events with Jimmy Choo, Dellaluna, Holzweiler, and Casablanca. “This connection has also allowed Caviar Kaspia to evolve beyond the role of a restaurant into a lifestyle brand, engaging in collaborations and projects that extend its universe while remaining rooted in its Parisian heritage.”
In recent years, Caviar Kaspia has collaborated with brands including Casablanca, Holzweiler, and Gigi Hadid’s cashmere brand Guest in Residence on capsule collections inspired by the restaurant’s aesthetic and heritage, and with e-tailer Moda Operandi on ceramic potato bowls inspired by the its signature caviar and crème fraîche baked potato, a familiar image for those who follow fashion insiders during Paris Fashion Week.
At fashion’s favorite venues, programming is rarely left to chance. “We strategize and look ahead a year in advance and decide which moments are important and with which brands,” says Elli Jafari, global head of guest experience and performance at The Standard Hotels, which was founded in 1999 in West Hollywood, with locations now in New York, London, Bangkok, Ibiza, and more. During the Fall/Winter 2026 fashion season, the London location hosted Rotate Birger Christensen’s party in partnership with Snapchat, where the Sugababes performed. “It’s business at the end of the day — but it doesn’t feel transactional. It’s about tapping into natural relationships.”
The impact usually extends beyond a single event, and the teams working for brand leads often become paying customers themselves. “Even when clients don’t book an event [after looking around], the amount of reservations we get [from their teams] afterwards is incredible,” says Carattini of People’s. “The people behind the brands do the heavy lifting — they’re the ones who create the repeat business.”
While fashion brings cultural cachet to venues, the value for brands is often far more practical. Publicist Lindsey Solomon, who works with brands like Harleen Kaur and Wiederhoeft, says he looks for venues that are adaptable, flexible, and visually dynamic — especially for his emerging brand clients who lack large budgets. Solomon also values a good relationship with venue managers. “A lot of it comes down to familiarity and visibility. When you return to the same venue, you start to see — and remember — how a brand transforms a space season after season,” he says. “At the same time, [using] the same space can be incredibly strategic when you’re operating on a tight timeline.”
For venues looking to build fashion credibility, trust is the biggest factor, especially when operating under the pressure of fashion week. “Fashion is a small and fast-moving network — if a space delivers smooth operations, discretion, and the right energy, word spreads quickly among producers and publicists. At the end of the day, longevity comes from trust,” says Kuan. “Brands return to venues where they know the lighting flatters, the staff understands production, and the space photographs well. There’s also cultural signaling in a way — repetition reinforces identity.”
Breaking into fashion’s orbit
Proximity to fashion often starts with leveraging the personal networks of the team. Carattini credits his fashion background for building People’s credibility early on. “[Brands will be] impressed that I know the house codes, or all the maisons a company owns, or who this person was that worked at the company 30 years ago and their significance in the brand history,” he says. Likewise, Florada of Jean’s says the venue’s head of VIP Jesus Gonzalez was able to land events with Jimmy Choo and J.Crew in the early days due to genuine friendships.
Word-of-mouth can be a powerful tool to craft the allure that attracts a fashion-forward crowd. “For the first three or four months, we weren’t even on Google. I think there’s something magical in that — we live in an era where there’s no sense of discovery anymore,” says Carattini. “The first few events we produced, you had to enter through a 10-foot, graffitied plywood wall with a makeshift door, and I think it gave people a sense of whimsy or like they were doing something a little naughty.” People’s has also become infamously difficult to get into: most visitors book reservations via a booking link from someone already in the People’s network. “I always say it’s a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor.”
Others focus on creating a community hub for the fashion industry. During lockdown, The Standard London offered rooms to young designers to use as ateliers (as Harris Reed did), or to host small gatherings and appointments, at discounted prices. “It’s great to have those relationships with established brands, of course, but what’s really important for us is helping the young creative community,” says Jafari, who was part of The Standard London’s founding team. “The generosity of giving has given back tenfold, creating this halo effect that [The Standard] is the hub for young or new fashion designers and stylists. We’re not always chasing budget, we’re chasing the relationship.”
“You have to be able to invest early in special people with a point of view, who aren’t global conglomerates,” agrees Florada, highlighting early parties at Jeans’s for Prabal Gurung, Eckhaus Latta, and Christopher John Rogers. She says that Jean’s is willing to “play ball” on the pricing for partnerships with brands that “care deeply who is in the room at the event, have clear business goals, and [will] be nice to our staff”. Understanding brands’ visions has enabled Jean’s to develop fashion credibility quickly. “You have to be fully obsessed with the brand’s goals — make sure that comes first, without losing your sensibility. The best example is we serve pasta pomodoro late at night when the restaurant becomes a party during fashion weeks. We had some protests at first [from brands about serving food late], but now it is the Jean’s moment people crave and find comfort in.”
Over time, the goal for many venues is to reach icon status that’s inextricably linked to the fashion world. That kind of reputation is built over many years, says Caviar Kaspia’s Mac-Crohon. “Most [of our] gatherings come about organically through longstanding relationships, shared clientele, and trust built over time,” he says.
That predictability is part of the appeal in an industry defined by constant movement. “Guests are welcomed in a way that feels personal and reassuring — something especially valued by the fashion community, whose lives are defined by constant travel and seasonal change. [It’s a place where] discretion and elegance prevail, and where guests return knowing exactly what they will find,” Mac-Crohon says. “A connection with the fashion world cannot be manufactured overnight.”
Gaetano Guarducci, managing partner of SA Hospitality Group, which owns Milanese restaurant Sant Ambroeus, agrees. “None of the relationships we have are engineered. That said, over time, formal collaborations have also developed with partners that have frequented our establishments for decades. We love working with friends and family,” he says. “Fashion creatives are incredibly discerning, they value consistency, discretion, strong design, and quality that holds up year after year. We believe that consistency — rather than trend-chasing — is what resonates.”
