KFN, a new company that includes former executives from IMG and Spring Place, said Thursday it will operate a network of New York Fashion Week venues available to designers free of charge starting this September.
Called the “Venue Collective,” the 10 spaces — which have already been secured — are meant as a bridge between a Bryant Park-esque centralised hub and the current status quo, where each season designers scramble to independently find venues around the city, said Leslie Russo, founder of the agency The Culture Shop, who previously headed fashion events at IMG and is working with KFN on the changes to NYFW.
The venues will be within a set perimeter for easy transportation between shows, and will come with back-of-the-house logistics, also gratis. The plan is to use different venues each season.
For designers not ready to stage a runway show, KFN will also host a daily morning salon throughout the duration of New York Fashion Week for a curated group of editors and buyers, as well as operate spaces for presentations and showroom appointments.
ADVERTISEMENT
“It’s the thing that’s holding the designers back,” Russo said. “If we could provide the infrastructure, and they provide what they do best, the show and the creative, that’s a really good foundation.”
The Venue Collective is the first of several fashion week initiatives that Russo and KFN co-founder Imad Izemrane announced to a crowd of fashion industry insiders in New York on Thursday (Izemrane co-founded Spring Place, which acted as a NYFW hub for several years, as well as N4XT, which produces Los Angeles Fashion Week).
Among the most ambitious of KFN’s plans is an “entertainment festival” and exhibition meant to showcase American fashion’s connection to culture, which it says is coming in 2026.
The festival will be a ticketed event held during the opening weekend of NYFW — the goal is to have about 5,000 attendees — and is meant to provide a non-sponsorship revenue stream that will help in funding the venue costs for runway shows. It is primarily meant to engage those outside of the fashion week bubble.
“The idea of just a traditional runway show is not what every American fashion brand’s model is based on,” said Russo.
KFN’s entry adds a new organiser to New York Fashion Week, though the Council of Fashion Designers of America still sets the schedule. KFN is working with the CFDA on all elements of the plan, particularly the Venue Collection.
The plans were born out of feedback KFN received from focus groups with designers, marketers and others, who complained of NYFW’s complicated logistics and high production costs. It also enlisted consultants such as modeling industry titan and advocate Bethann Hardison and designer Prabal Gurung.
New York has several dozen designers who regularly show at fashion week, and usually hosts a handful of one-off shows from international brands each season. But the most successful American brands often decamp to Paris or Milan, where shows receive more attention from global press and buyers, as well as state financial and logistical support.
ADVERTISEMENT
Steven Kolb, chief executive of the CFDA, said he hopes KFN’s plans will convince more designers to show in the city.
“I don’t think there is a designer globally that doesn’t want to penetrate the US market in a greater way,” he said.
The ultimate goal, according to Izemrane, is to recapture New York Fashion Week’s magic.
“We want to bring that energy back across the city, where you just feel this buzz of people from all over the world coming to New York,” he said. “Even if they don’t attend shows, because they just want to be in New York during fashion week.”
Learn more:
A Quiet New York Fashion Week Leaves Behind Big Questions
This week, New York-based designers confronted industry-wide challenges, and problems all their own.
