After struggling for attention in recent years, New York Fashion Week – which wraps up on Tuesday – is garnering global headlines, albeit for reasons good and bad.
On Sunday, an animal rights protester stormed the Cos runway and was violently removed by the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America – the body that oversees the event – sparking intense debate online over boundaries.
Elsewhere, the week saw the return of the label Diane von Furstenberg after a decade away, while Coach celebrated its 85th birthday with an on-runway party.
Here are some of the highlights.
Carolina Herrera
Creative director Wes Gordon looked to the 1980s glamour synonymous with founder Carolina Herrera as the house celebrated its 45th anniversary.
Against a backdrop of thousands of yellow tulips, Gordon's collection was built on the glamour of New York socialites, with polka dots, punchy yellow and fitted silhouettes made for no-nonsense New York lifestyles.
Softer pieces appeared in periwinkle blue, pistachio green and dusty pinks with sequins, organza ruffles and delicate belts for day, and layers of sheer floral chiffon for night.
Herrera’s signature white shirt was paired with sleek pencil skirts, high-waisted cigarette pants and rolled-cuff denim, while embroidered jackets featured fringed collars and playful brooches.
Gordon's great skill lies in bringing an ease to Herrera's glamorous language and making it enticing for today's customer.
Dauphinette
Little known outside New York, Olivia Cheng’s intriguing label Dauphinette explored transformation, memory and the acceptance of imperfection for spring/summer 2027. Titled Lady Mondegreen, the 24-look collection was presented at Genesis House.
Occupying a space between romance and decay, the collection arrived as raw hems, oil-painted figures and delicate botanical details, replete with a fragile, handmade quality. Vintage fabrics, hand-beading and minaudieres made from real bread pushed Cheng’s fascination with preservation into new territory.
The collection’s most memorable pieces included painted UGGs, forest-dipped Puma Speedcats and a bra covered in Victorian-inspired glass beads.
Christian Cowan
Christian Cowan looked to the darker side of Hollywood glamour, taking inspiration from Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Marilyn Monroe’s complicated relationship with fame. “I love people, but I’m scared of the public,” the actress once said.
Cowan's interest in Monroe was not simply as an object of fantasy, but as someone who constructed her own image. He mined the past accordingly, incorporating archival textiles from the 1920s and 1950s, maintaining a deliberate theatricality with corsetry, plunging silk gowns, sculptural taffeta flowers and unexpected colour combinations.
Rather than reproducing old Hollywood, Cowan treated it as raw material, stripping away some of its mythology and rebuilding it for the modern day.
Tory Burch
Tory Burch approached her collection as an exercise in optimism. Against what she described as the “dark times we are all experiencing”, she looked to the pleasure of wearing clothes – particularly those that become more interesting with age.
That idea appeared as deliberately creased fabrics, frayed knitwear and references to pieces with personal resonance, including a piped-edge blazer inspired by a jacket worn by her father.
Button-up knits were folded at the collar and worn away at the cuff; pointed pumps came with barbed-wire hardware; and pleated skirts were dropped low at the waist and secured with belts. Flapper-inspired dresses brought the show to a more exuberant close.
Cos
This Cos show will best be remembered for an incident involving Steven Kolb, president and chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, who violently grabbed an animal rights protester on the runway.
On Monday, Kolb apologised and took full responsibility for his actions. “What happened was completely out of character for me, both personally and as a leader,” he said. “As I review the videos, I understand the reaction they have generated. Frankly, I don’t recognise that person.”
He then announced he was taking a voluntary leave of absence and meeting with a professional “to ensure it never happens again”.
The incident overshadowed a rather lovely show by creative director Karin Gustafsson, who drew on Christian Dior’s New Look, translating its proportions into narrow, sculpted waists and wide necklines for a mood of restrained glamour.
Enveloping robe-like coats and shaggy faux-fur jackets contrasted with layers of diaphanous tulle, as the show notes described it as “a study in contrast, materiality and craftsmanship”, and the tension between structure and softness was one of its more successful ideas.
Cult Gaia
Cult Gaia returned to New York Fashion Week with Behesht, the Persian word for heaven. For designer Jasmin Larian Hekmat, the collection was a personal response to grief following the death of her grandmother, using fashion to explore resilience and renewal.
The collection moved from charcoal into sky blue and blooming pinks, tracing a visual progression from darkness towards light. Architectural basketweaves and constructions made from 2,000 metal rings were softened by hand-painted organza petals.
Sculptural wooden accessories, undone hair and sun-washed make-up kept the presentation grounded, but the central idea was emotional rather than decorative – that beauty can emerge from difficult places.
Diane von Furstenberg
For Henry Zankov’s first runway collection as artistic director of Diane von Furstenberg, movement was the starting point. Presented beneath the High Line, a fortuitous wind tunnel sent jersey, chiffon and scarf panels billowing around the models – an accidental piece of choreography that neatly illustrated Zankov’s approach.
Zankov knows the house well. He previously worked at DVF before returning last year with a capsule collection he described as an “incubator”, using the archive to test where his own instincts might take the brand.
For his New York Fashion Week debut, he resisted the temptation to reinvent it. Ease, colour, print, sensuality and a rebellious streak remained, but the familiar wrap dress appeared only twice. Instead, Zankov explored the broader idea of wrapping: draped T-shirts, ballerina tops crossing the torso and scarf-like panels enveloping the body.
Colours were shown as tomato red, peacock blue, jade and fuchsia across fluid dresses, soft tailoring and separates, while archival leopard appeared alongside new geometrics and a “confetti” motif derived from fabric swatches.
Coach
For Coach’s 85th anniversary, creative director Stuart Vevers looked backwards without becoming nostalgic. The spring/summer 2027 collection considered the beauty of things that have been worn, loved and lived in, with a mood that recalled the romanticism of the 1990s.
Leaning into an almost melancholic mood, the collection exuded delicate romance that was pitched against utilitarian details, with unfinished catch-stitches, soft pastels and burnished hardware giving the clothes a sentimental patina, as if they already belonged in someone’s wardrobe.
It was a fitting anniversary message for a brand whose identity has long been tied to American leather goods: luxury not as pristine perfection, but as something that becomes more personal through use.
