Fashion Month Is Happening! Really. Probably? Maybe.

Here’s a very opinionated guide for what to watch, where to watch it, where to buy and what the heck is going on.

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What to Watch and When

Fashion Month!
Sept. 14 to Oct. 6

This is a season like no other. If the last set of digital shows/music videos/perfume ads/lookbooks, in July, was a kind of bookmark — a place holder for an industry during a pandemic — it has dawned on all of us that rather than an interregnum, this may be the normal, at least for the foreseeable future.

Now the whole idea of fashion is starting to be questioned: What is a trend when we all exist in our isolated bubbles? Who needs so many new clothes? Who needs professional or dress-up outfits at all when offices are remote and events on hold? What is the point?

It’s on designers to provide an answer; to, in effect, justify their existence, to help us understand how we are going to express are selves in the future. These shows are how they are going to do it. The stakes have never been higher — and not just because a bunch of them will actually be live. As Jerry Seinfeld wrote of New York, “Real, live, inspiring human energy exists when we coagulate together.” The same is true of fashion shows.