- Rachel Zoe hosted a fashion pop-up called Damn Fancy Styling Station on Thursday.
- There, the style icon tells Insider about her first memories of sneaking into NYFW shows.
- Zoe also discussed how Fashion Week has evolved over the years and her plans for this season.
Rachel Zoe technically wasn’t invited to the first New York Fashion Week.
“When I moved here as a 22-year-old to be a stylist, I wasn’t allowed to be in a fashion show, but you could stand in line,” she told Insider at a pop-up styling station she hosted at Tanqueray on Thursday.
So that’s what Zoe did. She waited in line for the Marc Jacobs runway and found a spot standing at the back of the crowd. But when someone sitting in the second row left, Zoe did what she shouldn’t have done – they took their seats.
“It was very real,” she said. “I was like: ‘This is it. Because of the rush, the adrenaline, the excitement – I will do all this in my life.'”
Rachel Zoe’s Carrie Bradshaw moment
Zoe was no stranger to the world of fashion, having started her career as a magazine stylist. But nothing prepared her for the excitement and glamor of attending fashion week for the first time in the ’90s.
“Do you remember that scene in ‘Sex and the City’ when Sarah Jessica goes to Paris and walks around? That was actually me in fashion,” Zoe told Insider about going to shows for the first time.
Her feelings were quickly recognized by those around her. Outside the Marc Jacobs show, where Zoe stole a seat, she was approached by celebrity photographers Patrick McMullan and Bill Cunningham.
“They took a picture of me outside the show and Patrick said, ‘Who are you?’. I said, ‘I don’t know you, my name is Rachel, I’m just a fashion-obsessed girl.’
Zoe added: “I didn’t really know what he meant and I didn’t care. I was just happy to be there.”
New York Fashion Week is completely different today – and so is Zoe
Traditional runways hosted by big-name designers are still prominent in the New York fashion world, but they have evolved. Now, influencers can appear in the front row next to celebrities, and each day’s highlights will be splashed on TikTok as they happen. Zoe knows this.
“What hasn’t changed at fashion week?” Zoe told an insider. “The business of fashion – everything. The Internet has changed everything possible.”
For one thing, you might not find people sneaking onto the runways like Zoe once did.
“Safety is so good these days, I don’t know if you can do that anymore,” she said with a laugh.
But even those who were invited to attend were not called in the same way.
“It seems to me that there are no more serious invitations,” said Zoe. “You know, put paper away, people throw them out. I collect them because they were like art forms, but now I feel like everything is digital.”
And Zoey has grown too. The girl who planned to enter the second row is now a designer, a celebrity stylist and a main part of New York Fashion Week.
In addition to her pop-up styling site, Zoey told Insider that she’ll be attending a few shows this season, including Rodarte and Carolina Herrera.
While she’s not sure exactly what to expect or what this season’s trend will be, she’s sure of one thing.
“I think at the end of the day, fashion is the most free thought,” she said. “That hasn’t changed.”
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