I just attended my second New York Fashion Week and I am so happy to share with you my experiences going to Fashion Week in the winter versus the summer!
Whether you’re a blogger, influencer, model, Insta-Boyfriend, editor, etc. attending New York Fashion Week is always exciting! And yes, can be very overwhelming! If it’s something you’ve considered attending, but never have before – I’m here to give you a helping hand on my experience going in the Winter versus the Fall!
(As a quick note – February Fashion Week shows the collections for Fall/Winter and September Fashion Week shows the collections for Spring/Summer of the upcoming year!)
For those of you who remember, I went to NYFW this past September and had a blast! It was a whole new experience for me that I am grateful to have had! It was my first ever Fashion Week and I literally had no idea what to expect, what to do, how to do it, or where to go – LOL. This time around, I was not only much more familiar with NYC itself, but I had a much better knowing of how to get to shows, where the shows were located, how many events I could plan for a day/week, and how to figure out everything in between!
Traveling to New York at the start of February was just the same as in the Fall – but different in many ways as well!
First off, the weather was very different than in September – lol. My boyfriend, Tim and I experienced a week mostly full of grey skies and rain. This presented problems with shooting, filming, getting to and from shows, hair and makeup mishaps, and outfit changes.
It also created a problem when it came to packing. Because it was winter, and well, coats and and jackets were necessary, that didn’t leave much room to pack as many outfits as I had in the Fall – LOL.
Nonetheless, despite not having tons of room for outfits in our suitcases, we were able to shoot all the outfits I had packed and get a bunch of content to use even when I returned home.
Tim and I stayed at The Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown. We stayed here a couple years ago when we went over the holidays and thought it was a great central location considering everywhere we planned to go. Tim and I usually like trying out new hotels every time we go back to certain cities, but because we both had a lot of luggage (well I did – lol), we really needed a room that had enough sq. footage to lay my outfits out and be able to film and shoot in. The suite at The Roosevelt gave us plenty of room for a very reasonable price compared to the other hotels we considered staying at.
Because of the weather issues, I was not able to attend all the shows and events I had initially planned on, which left me to be very picky about the ones I did want to attend. Additionally, if you’ve even been to fashion week yourself you know how exhausting and tiring it can get just after the first few days!
The prices for Uber’s were insane as well – so I really needed to determine if a show/event was worth going to for a $50-$60 Uber roundtrip. In the end, I tried to stick to just one or two shows/events a day because of the cost to get there, the weather conditions, and if Tim was able to go with me or now, if I had the energy to get there, and whether or not Tim and I wanted to do something else while we were in the city.
The funny thing is with Fashion Week (which makes it incredibly hard to plan for) is that you can get invites to things the day of or day before they are scheduled to occur! I got invited to a handful of events after I arrived in NYC so I had to constantly change and shift my schedule depending on which events I wanted to attend more than others.
Keep in mind however, that Fashion Week – no matter when you go – is not all about the shows. Even if you don’t get a single invite to a show there is still plenty to do! There are tons of pop-up shops, cocktail parties, showroom visits, beauty events, brunches/lunches/dinners, meet & greets, etc.! In some cases, these are even more fun than the shows are you get to mingle and social with people you may have never come in contact with before! A lot of these events hand out free goodies – and who doesn’t like scoring some of those?!
Two days after arriving in NYC, I got an invite to a show I desperately wanted to go to. I planned out another hotel stay and got another flight home, but a day after making these arrangements I decided to was far too expensive to stay another day and a half to make one show. Not extending my stay in NYC would allow me to plan another trip in a few weeks for a longer period of time – thus I choose go that route. Besides, the weather was going to be rainy and I wouldn’t have had Tim to help me shoot and keep me company.
While I had a lovely time in NYC this February, I would certainly say that if you were planning on either going in September or February, I would encourage you to go in September. Getting around, packing, shooting content, meeting up with friends, and doing things outside of Fashion Week are far more easier and enjoyable in the Fall than in the Winter. Now, if you have the budget and have a list of shows you want to attend in the Winter, by all means do it! I think Fashion Week is incredibly exciting and a fun time for anyone to be apart of whether you have a strong interest in fashion or not!
