New York Fashion Week has faced challenges in recent years as sponsorship dollars dried up and the search for suitable venues has spread the calendar map all over the city. Designers and attendees have agreed: something needs to change. This September, it will, thanks to newly-formed organisation KFN, which soft launched in February.
Among the chief changes for next season is the new Venue Collective, a resource of free-to-show venues funded by KFN. It’s just the beginning. At a press event Thursday morning, KFN unveiled a five-phase revamp for NYFW, with the goal of completion by September 2027. The first phase is the introduction of the Venue Collective. The second and third involve the introduction of consumer-centred events; fourth is generating city and state support; and fifth is the introduction of a digital platform for NYFW attendees.
KFN was founded in partnership with KF Fashion, a division of Kilburn Media, a private equity-backed company that produces ticketed entertainment events, and N4XT Experiences, which acquired LA Fashion Week in 2022. It’s helmed by Imad Izemrane, co-founder and CEO of N4XT Experiences and co-founder and former president of Spring Place, and Leslie Russo, founder of The Culture Shop, who was previously president of fashion events and properties for IMG (which used to host NYFW at Spring Studios, before pulling out ahead of February 2024 fashion week). KF Fashion is financing KFN’s NYFW plans. (Strategic brand partners are also part of the revenue model.)
The CFDA remains the official organiser of NYFW, and will manage the calendar while offering programming and strategic input. “We welcome what KFN is doing to support the industry at large, which is aligned with the mission of the CFDA,” CFDA CEO Steven Kolb said in a statement.
Introducing a consumer-facing event is likely to be divisive for NYFW stakeholders, participants and attendees. As fashion shows across the world have transitioned from industry-only events to marketing spectacles, the question around who should be in the room and how designers can play both sides – business and consumer – has dictated conversations around the future of fashion week.
NYFW, in particular, has become more commercial. Introducing ticketed consumer events, similar in format to Art Basel, according to organisers, would bring the public even closer. KFN argues it’s necessary to fund the other phases – and that introducing dedicated commercial events will successfully bring consumers into the fold without placing the burden on the designers that show on-schedule. “[The B2C] doesn’t work if the foundational part isn’t strong,” Russo told Vogue Business after Thursday morning’s presentation. “We felt like we needed to solve for that first.”
To determine what NYFW needed, the KFN team set up roundtable discussions with industry players, and consulted stakeholders from model and activist Bethann Hardison to designer Prabal Gurung. “We wanted to come up with something rooted in this idea that New York Fashion Week doesn’t really belong to one entity. It belongs to everyone in this room. It belongs to the city of New York and it is organised by the calendar that is owned by the CFDA,” Russo said. It read as both a rally for the New York industry, and a subtle nod to the ongoing tug-of-war between IMG and the CFDA for the reins of NYFW. And a promise that, this time, it’ll work.
Phase 1: September 2025
Phase one is the most relevant to NYFW’s designers themselves. KFN will fund a group of runway show spaces, a showroom space and “salon” venue for smaller designers. This 10 venue “campus” of NYFW locations will be within a set perimeter – meaning no more attempted 15 minute commutes from FiDi to the Upper East Side to Bushwick – and KFN-sponsored transport will help shuttle attendees from show to show. Each space will come at no cost to the designer.
It’s KFN’s answer to what Russo says has been the “foundational issue” of NYFW: whether or not there should be a centralised venue. Many long-time attendees look back fondly on the Bryant Park tents, which dissolved as the event’s central location more than 15 years ago. Attempts to offer a main location, from Lincoln Center to Spring Studios, never caught on in the same way. From the KFN-hosted roundtables, it became clear what was working – and what wasn’t. It’s a wonder it’s taken so long to find a middle ground. Russo and Izemrane put their doing so down to the decision to bring fashion’s different players together to discuss. “In one of the first roundtables, one designer said, I can’t believe we’ve never done this,” Russo recalls.
“What became abundantly clear is that New York Fashion Week is really in need of foundational support, a paradigm shift of the model in a re-imagined infrastructure,” Russo told industry attendees, including press, buyers and, of course, designers themselves.
For designers who choose to show at one of these venues, KFN will cover permitting as well as back of house logistics including floor plans, equipment rental and installation. Designers will need to cover PR and security for arrivals, hair and makeup, models and show production. The idea is that designers’ own money will go towards the creative side, and the logistics or overhead expenses will be covered. Thursday morning’s crowd applauded in response.
Though NYFW has major players like Michael Kors, Tory Burch and, in February, Thom Browne, many on the calendar are independent and emerging talent. Izemrane and Russo are aware of this, and note feedback from editors and buyers that the reason they come over from Europe is to discover new talent. The goal is to ensure that talent can show up.
It’s different for a single designer to approach a venue than an entity like KFN, which is proposing a week of programming, Izemrane says, adding that the response from potential venues so far has been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Designers are cautiously optimistic. “This is interesting,” one attendee said after the event wrapped. Another expressed some skepticism about how it’ll all play out, before adding “this is exciting, though”.
Rachel Scott, founder and designer of ready-to-wear brand Diotima, agrees. “It’s something that we really need. Obviously, as we know, there’s no financial support [right now]. It’s like, you are required to have a show, but there’s nothing supporting it. And with the industry the way it is and the global climate, we more than ever need support,” Scott says. “ I’m excited and curious to see how it rolls out and what everything means.”
The timeline will follow the CFDA’s own, Russo says, when it comes to applications, schedule and location announcements. The KFN venues will operate on a first come, first serve basis. Approximately 30 designers will be able to participate. Applications are open now.
Phases 2 to 5: by September 2027
Beyond next September, KFN has big plans that extend well beyond the trade element of fashion week. After revamping NYFW itself, KFN will add on two consumer elements, set for September 2026.
Phase two, the ‘American Fashion Festival’, is a two-to-three day fashion festival that Izemrane says will bring American designers that don’t typically show at fashion week into the fold. It will run parallel to NYFW’s opening weekend, and bring in nightlife, sports and music touchpoints.
Phase three, the ‘American Fashion Experience’, is envisioned as a “multimedia exhibition” that will take place each September that will travel beyond New York.
Consumer integration is a slippery slope. International fashion weeks have experienced the muddied waters that come with mixing customer events with business ones. But Izemrane and Russo are confident that by keeping the consumer events separate from the industry happenings – a “modular” setup, as Russo calls it – that NYFW will be able to achieve the best of both worlds. “They’ll be separate things,” she says. There were no details yet to share on the types of consumer events that would be offered, or what the programming would look like.
The pair liken their vision for NYFW to Art Basel, where a flurry of brand events, pop-ups and activations have almost overtaken the fair itself. “They’ll fly in from Miami to New York the way people from New York flock to Miami for Art Basel,” Izemrane says. “Galleries go there to show. Not everyone’s going there to go look at gallery artwork,” Russo adds. “They’re going there for parties, they’re going there for nightlife experience, big art moments outside the trade part of it. We feel like there’s no reason that New York fashion shouldn t have that same sort of a structure.”
The difference here is that, at Art Basel, consumers can purchase tickets to the art fair itself. At NYFW, shows and showrooms will remain invite- and appointment-only.
Phases four and five, also to be set in motion by September 2026, get back to the crux of NYFW itself. The fourth, which involves getting more financial and logistical support from the city and state, has to wait until KFN establishes itself, the founders say. “Without a really strong plan and vision to rally around, it’s very hard for government entities to support,” Russo says. This next year will be the proof of concept, and the idea is to increase funding not just for NYFW, but for American fashion businesses more broadly. And, lastly, KFN will round out its offering with an AI-supported digital platform for NYFW attendees to organise their schedules.
As for the rumours that New York’s February fashion week is on the out, the co-founders declined to give specifics. “We’ve heard all the feedback about it. It’s something that we’ll dive deeper on. A lot of people have a lot of dilemmas around why not to – and why to [have it],” Russo says. “Definitely for next February we will be showing up and then we’ll see as we’re building this out further.”
Correction: Updated to reflect that Izemrane is the former, not current, president of Spring Place.
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