And just like that, another sensational fashion week in New York is coming to an end. Designers spend MONTHS creating and perfecting their collections for their “five minutes of fame” while their models walk down the runway. While watching a runway show, there is no way to know just how much work goes into creating that five-minute show. As a senior in college studying fashion design, I was determined to find out.
So first I had applied to be on the New York Fashion Week Temp Support Team in September with BCBGMAXAZRIA, a company I had interned with the previous summer. After securing approval and getting excused from my classes for a week, I packed up my entire suitcase with black clothes and flew out to the Big Apple.
My Fashion Week Schedule
Saturday: I arrived in New York around 2:00 P.M. and after settling in and hanging up all my work clothes for the week, I headed out to explore the area.
Sunday: My first day of work! Completely overestimating the walk from my hotel to the office, I got there 20 minutes earlier than I was scheduled at 9:30 A.M. Since the entire office was nearly empty when I arrived, I patiently sat in the lobby and waited. When the main receptionist arrived, she informed me that most of the staff wouldn’t be in until 10:30 A.M. since the modeling callbacks got pushed back. Once the rest of the staff arrived, I was assigned with a group to work on creating ceiling decorations for the main showroom for the meetings with potential clients after each show. We were given long strips of printed paper to either make pieces of fringe or cut the paper into squares, folding and gluing them into a flower shape and “sewing” them through a piece of fishing wire.
Monday: Being told ahead of time no one else would be arriving at the office until mid-morning, I showed up “on time.” The group of us that were gluing and cutting the day before had to move into the tiny kitchen area because the showroom was needed for meetings. We made the most of it though, and actually came up with an effective system to finish all the decorations!
Tuesday: My day off! I took this time to explore around SoHo, basically escaping the craziness of Midtown.
Wednesday: I spent the majority of the day in the hectic PR office unpacking garment bags and hanging up the outfits in assigned order. Some of those outfits weighed 20 pounds each. I’m not even kidding! My next step was to label each garment bag with a shipping tag with its designated number in case any garments happened to get mixed up in the transport. I was sent on the errand to pick up more shipping tags, and attempted to search in three different office supply stores in Midtown, including one that didn’t actually exist anymore (thanks Google Maps). The next closest one was deep in Brooklyn, approximately a 30-minute ride on the subway. Add into the equation that I had thought today was a brilliant day to break in my new black flats. Massive blisters were developing on the backs of my heels and I was stuck with a limited quantity of Band-Aids. So I hobbled slowly from the subway stop in Brooklyn to the OfficeMax where, hallelujah, they had the shipping tags! I wouldn’t have to hobble back to the office empty-handed!
I made it a special point to stop at Forever 21 on my way back to the hotel to pick up some emergency, BACKLESS shoes for my poor feet.
Thursday: I was sent to a different area where I helped dress a single model for pictures in each garment to create an ordered layout for the runway shows. Final model casting was also going on today, so sometimes I would help other models change if the other room became too crowded. By the end of the day, I was getting to be an expert with the whole quick-change process.
Friday: Today was spent in preparation for BCBG’s Elite Client Event, an event held at the flagship store at the corner of 5th Avenue and 40th Street for BCBG’s most exclusive customers. We would be presenting a small-scale runway show of last season’s runway collection that was available for purchase. A small team of us was selected to help out “backstage” at this event helping dress the models. We were each assigned to a model, and each model would wear four different outfits. There were only eight models walking in this show, so each outfit change had to be done within two minutes to keep the rotation running smoothly.
Saturday: TODAY’S THE DAY! I arrived at an already-bustling venue, and got straight to work helping set up backstage. Right as the show was about to start my friend and I were told that in order to decrease the amount of chaos backstage, they were only having full-time staff helping with the models. We were told to go enjoy the show and come back as soon as it wrapped up to continue our tasks. We actually got to watch our week’s worth of hard work pay off. That was incredible! In between finishing our tasks backstage, we got to meet the incredibly talented Lubov Azria, the creative mind behind all of BCBG’s runway collections.
Back at the main office following the show, we organized each pair of shoes by type and size and packed them into their respective shoebox. Forty models with two outfits each… 80 total pairs of shoes! There were A LOT of shoeboxes piled up in that tiny office. And finally, we boxed up all the garment bags. This was, understandably, the latest night spent at the office.
Sunday: Time to head back to Iowa. The majority of the day was spent waiting in the airport, finishing all the homework that had accumulated over the past week.
By working at New York Fashion Week, I made amazing friends and learned so much about the industry that I didn't know before. The work was tedious, but we still managed to have fun and enjoy ourselves. All in all, working behind the scenes at New York Fashion Week was an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
