Everything To Know Before Attending New York Fashion Week

I know many of you were excited to see my New York Fashion week outfits and show details but I know all too well that this post is the real one you’ve been waiting for. I’m sure many of you are asking yourself “how did she even go to New York Fashion Week?!”. Well, friends, I’m here to tell you.

Going to fashion week isn’t rocket science but it takes hours upon hours of research, tons of hard work, and lots of planning beforehand. I did my fair share of surfing the internet, talking with other bloggers, and tons of networking to score invites to one of the biggest events in fashion. I swear to god I think I sent more emails in January + February 2020 than I have in my first four years of blogging combined, lol.

What is New York Fashion Week? 

So let’s start with the basics. Fashion Week is a series of designer presentations and brand events held biannually to showcase the upcoming season’s designs. Fashion Week is held in what they call the “Big Four” fashion capitals of the world— New York City, London, Milan, and Paris. New York Fashion Week typically happens in February and September but dates change yearly; official dates can be found on Fashion Week Online’s website.

How do you attend New York Fashion Week?

I know so many girls who think you have to wait until you have X amount of followers, or until so and so sends you to the city for a week. News flash, if you’re waiting for a personal invitation to follow your dreams, think again.

How I attended Fashion Week: I decided I was going to be attending Fashion Week. As simple as that. I said I wanted to go, so I bought a ticket, and worked my @$$ off to get invited to different events. Keep in mind that not everyone gets the same results as I did; just because you make the initial decision to go, doesn’t necessarily mean that brands are going to say yes to your asking for an invite to their show or that you will be extended any private invitations to attend different events. Your following isn’t necessarily everything but the people who you are reaching out to still want to see experience within the industry, brand deals, an engaged audience, and high-quality content.

My initial process was to:

• Decided I wanted to make this happen: After so many years of wishing I could go to Fashion Week, I decided the only thing holding me back was myself. So, I sat down with my mom (aka my biggest supporter ever) and said, “look, I’m going to Fashion Week”.
• Booked a plane ticket: The next step was figuring out how I was going to get to the city. Since driving was out of the option, my two choices were bus or plane. The bus ride was over 13 hours and was more costly than a plane ticket so I ruled that out quickly. In December I looked up flights from Cleveland to NYC. I booked almost exactly two months in advance and got my flights for about as cheap as they were going to get. I flew Southwest and had connecting flights both ways which weren’t ideal but hey, I’m on a college budget so that was the price I had to pay for a $73 flight.
• Booked a hotel: Next, I needed a place to stay. My initial hope was to partner with a hotel, promoting their location in exchange for staying at a discounted, media rate. It felt like I contacted just about every hotel in the gosh darn city that was within relevant distance to my events and it just didn’t work out. I had a feeling that my following was just too small for this to happen, but I wanted to try anyway. We ended up booking our hotel just two weeks out from our arrival.
• Researched my butt off: Now that I had a flight and a place to stay, it was time to get into events. Certainly, I couldn’t be jetting off to NYC for five days with no plans to attend anything. This is where things get tricky and where most of you all’s questions come from. Don’t worry, I’ll be answering them later on. At this point, I was reallyyyy wishing I would stumble across a blog post like the one I’m writing now that could put things into simpler terms for me. I read dozens of articles, contacted so many other influencers, and scoured the internet for hours to try and find answers to some of my questions. I created a skeleton of a pitch, found tens of different emails, and made hundreds of phone calls.
• Started pitching brands: Once I came up with contact information for people in the industry, I began sending hundreds of emails. I pitched everyone and anyone I could get a hold of. My number one piece of advice: do your research and follow up. NEVER underestimate the power of a follow-up email.

How does Fashion Week work? 

The first thing you need to do if you are planning on attending Fashion Week is head to Fashion Week Online. Under the “schedules” category, click New York Fashion Week and there will be a huge list of just about every single show that will be going on the week of. I started checking this the first week of January. The bulk of the events weren’t added until roughly three weeks beforehand. It’s important to keep checking back because this calendar is updated daily, most things just days before they happen.

As a psycho planner like myself, this was hard for me to wrap my head around but you sort of just have to be okay with the fact that your trip may be only one week away and your schedule isn’t fully set in stone yet/you don’t have a full itinerary. In order to have a successful Fashion Week, you have to be a little spontaneous. Be okay with a changing schedule because it’s bound to happen.

Some shows listed on Fashion Week Online are Open To The Public and others are Private shows. If a show is Open To The Public it means that anyone is able to purchase a ticket to it, whether you are relevant, involved in the fashion industry, or not. Private shows cannot be attended by “just anyone” and require an invitation to attend.

I went through every single event listed on the schedule. The extent of information given for some shows is literally the name of the designer and the showtime, while others give the contact information for someone involved in the show. I wrote down every single email listed on the schedule (both for public and private shows) and pitched every single fashion show. Those designers who I was interested in seeing but didn’t have any contact information for, I was left to do some digging. This took tons of hard work but it’s the only way unless you know someone.

Once I got my first “Yes” from a designer, I began getting more. I also started receiving emails from designers inviting me to their shows. In the end, my itinerary was composed of both Open To The Public and Private shows as well as shows that I pitched in order to receive an invite to and those that invited me.

Who sent you to Fashion Week?

As far as I’m concerned, unless you’re someone like @tezza with a whopping 815K Instagram followers, it’s not overly common that a brand “sends you” to Fashion Week. While I am fully aware that there are large influencers out there who collaborate with clothing brands and hotels who pay for their travels and stay in New York City, that was not the case for me. Which leads me to your next question….

How much does it cost to attend? 

I’m going to be as transparent as possible with you at this point because I know that it’s something that so many people need to consider before they take the plunge to go to NYFW.

• Plane ticket from CLE to LGA: $73
• Plane ticket from LGA to CLE: $73
• King Size suite for four-night stay: $122 a night, total of $488
• Express Mege Bus Ticket: $30
• Other Expenses: Uber, Cab, Food

If I had not gotten into any shows, I could have paid anywhere between $35-$200 to attend a few open to the public events and shows. Because I worked my butt off and was extended a few different invites, I did not end up needing to do so. Therefore, the expenses above were the extent of the money spent on my trip. Aside from the “other expenses” category which my parents covered, I paid the entirety of the trip out of my own pocket using money that I worked (very, very) hard for the last two months of freelancing.

In all honesty, this trip brought a whole new perspective on money to my eyes. As I see how careless some of my college friends are with their money, I see how differently the same money can be spent. While others chose to spend the same amount of money in two months on multiple orders of clothes and take-out food, I was able to buy the trip of a lifetime and lifelong memories with my mom. And while to some, this number may seem rather costly, I can assure you that the trip was worth every penny— it’s hard to put a price on the amount of networking I did. And while the day I get flown out to NYC at the expense of someone else seems very far away, I have my fingers crossed that as my platforms continue to grow, I can hopefully work with a hotel for my next stay.

What shows did you go to?

So many bloggers recommended keeping your first Fashion Week schedule “light” as there’s “so much to do and see in the city”. Frankly, I’ve been to the city enough times and really couldn’t care less about doing any sightseeing. However, this was also my first Fashion Week so I knew it would be a bit overwhelming. Therefore, I went with a middle of the road schedule, having at least two events lined up per day. If you want to get details on every show I went to, check out Friday’s blog post here.

With the amount of walking in between events and wanting to get tons of photos/outfit changes in, my schedule ended up working out really well this time around. However, next time I attend, I would definitely want to add at least one more show a day to fill those awkward time gaps and really maximize my time during my stay.

Where did you stay? 

Frankly, NYC transportation confuses the heck out of me, not that my sense of direction is much better but I’ve grown up walking everywhere in NYC. Because of this, my mom wanted to make sure we were staying at a hotel within walking distance of almost everything. We ended up being less than two miles from all of my shows (with the exception of one).

My mom and I stayed at the Fairfield Inn at 21 West 37th Street between 5th and 6th Ave. We truly could not have picked a better location or hotel. While our room wasn’t the largest by any means, we pretty much only slept in the room so it was irrelevant. The staff were so friendly, they had cookies out every night, and storing your luggage is free of charge (double yay!). 10/10 would recommend staying there again.

Was your age a disadvantage? 

As always: yes, and no. Several different directors I spoke to said yes to letting me into their shows for free with a VIP pass because of my age and yet it definitely hurt me in other circumstances, since many people do still view me as a “kid”. If I had to lean in one direction though, I would say that it helped me more than it hurt me. So many people assumed I must be someone important considering I was attending at such a young age.

Who did you go with? 

Lots of bloggers go to Fashion Week with a group of their girls and head to the fashion shows with their blogging besties. However, I don’t really know any girls my age who are at the stage of the game to be attending Fashion Week. When I decided I wanted to go, I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, nor did I want to. I asked my mom to come with me as I truly could not be trusted in NYC by myself (trust me I’d be as flat as a pancake after being run over by a car for not looking both ways) and because she has been my absolute rock over the years.

While she couldn’t attend every event with me, she did get to come to a few as my plus one and was the biggest trooper as I forced her to “just get lower” for the 838th photo of the day, lol. There is truly nobody else I would have rather shared such a huge career milestone with.

Do you plan on going again?

Yes! I would love to attend in Septemeber as that season tends to be a bit bigger than in February. However, I am obviously a college student too and I’m unsure with sorority recruitment and my first week of classes if I will be able to attend. Fingers crossed, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

And while I am feeling overwhelmed with school work and responsibilities as I get back to the typical college life, I am reminded that the things I learned while at Fashion Week are things no classroom is able to teach me. There is truly no experience quite like the one I just had and I am so grateful for all of your love and support as I keep chasing my dreams.

With that being said, that is going to be all for today’s post. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. I would love to help you out and hope this post gave you some insight on the craziest week of the year.

With love, McKenz

Latest Post: Weekly Wrap Up #7 2020
Related Post: New York Fashion Week Recap Part 2: The Intinerary
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