Aspiring fashion industry stars, would you like some free advice from the founder of New York Fashion Week?
Be nice.
And check your ego at the door.
Seriously.
Whatever impressions you may harbour about the fashion industry (perhaps from The Devil Wears Prada, say?), they are not all entirely true, at least not if you ask Fern Mallis, who as creator of New York Fashion Week (NYFW), says those are the two things she tells anyone she mentors.
Like some of the most accomplished people in the fashion industry, Mallis’ name may not immediately register. But her credentials are what’s helped make New York the fashion haven it is now — which was not always the case. When she founded what is now known as NYFW in 1993, fashion was a rather private club and not necessarily the economic or creative powerhouse it is today.
Today, she’s in Dubai, watching as another fledgling fashion week takes off: Fashion Forward, which is now in its third season, after launching in April 2013.
“They have to be in it for the right reasons. I think when organisers are in it to make a buck, to do it as a profit centre, that doesn’t work to me. I think it has to come from the purest place of creative talent that needs a platform that needs to be seen and heard,” says Mallis, speaking after an industry luncheon on Thursday ahead of the runway shows this weekend.
“That raw talent then needs infrastructure. You need someone to build it, someone to manage it, and you need outreach to invite the right people to come to it and you need help to market it and publicise it. What’s really nice in this day and age, and was not when I first started fashion week, are all these new programmes and incubators and mentorship programmes, schools and design districts. That’s all pretty fabulous. All of that is kind of coalescing now in Dubai. I think that all feels right.”
It’s not just NYFW Mallis has under her belt — she’s guided fashion weeks from Miami to Melbourne to Mumbai. Most things are the same, she says, but each city’s culture can bring something unique to a fashion week that shouldn’t be glossed over.
“I think the ones that work the best are the ones that are so conscious of their culture and where they are and who they are that they bring that to the table. If you take a textbook and try and do it it doesn’t always fit.”
Her lasting memories of Mumbai fashion week include disruptive photographers and of course, the Bollywood showstoppers.
“People love that and hate that. When they don’t do it, they complain, ‘where is the star?’; when they do do it, they go ‘why is this star on the runway?’ So that’s a no-win situation.”
That’s just as much the case with celebrity fashion show guests in other countries, she adds, remarking that more and more designers are paying stars to attend their shows.
“Some people consistently do it very well. Michael Kors has fabulous people and you know he has relationships with them, you know he is friends with these people, from Debra Messing to Michael Douglas.
“When those celebrities are there, and they are getting a tonne of media, they are in all the magazines — it’s a whole new ballgame because of tweeting and instagramming — that’s branding. That designer’s name is out there a billion times more than it would have been. I think somewhere it registers.”
Quote/unquote
“There’s about 400 fashion weeks in the world. Who’s to play God and say you shouldn’t have one? As long as people manage the expectations of what they are doing. Are they going to be the next Milan or Paris? No. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get some buzz in your city and get people excited and go shopping.” — On whether every city should have a fashion week