NYFW 2017 Recap - Lauren Schwaiger

This was my very first Fashion Week! {eek!} I spent 4 fun-filled, yet exhausting days in New York from early Thursday afternoon – late Sunday evening! When I was booking my ticket, I totally thought everyone would book a late flight out on Sunday to make the most of the day…nope! I was the only one left that flew up from Charlotte. I have no issue running around on my own and had the best day + had the chance to attend 3 additional shows before heading to the airport to catch a 7pm flight. The September shows run from the 6-13 and are at various venues all over the city. Most of the shows I attended were either at Skylark Clarkson, Chelsea Piers or The Gallery at the Dream Downtown.

I got into the city + checked into the hotel around 130pm. I roomed with 3 of my Charlotte Blogger Babes, Alyssa @ahintofhazel, Erika @tayloringstyle and Alexis @alifeofclarity. I have become friends with these 3 lovely ladies thru our Style Collective group in Charlotte and I’m so happy I had the opportunity to get to know each one of them better and do NYFW with them!

Our first day wasn’t too crazy…after getting all settled into the hotel, I freshened up and changed into a floral dress from mango + my favorite OTK Boots from Vince Camuto. Before heading to our first show of the day (my first show ever, yasss) we popped into the Samsung Building in Meatpacking to catch Oliva Culpo & Jasmine Sanders {@goldenbarbie} speak on the WWD x Samsung panel. There were various influencers, designers and industry leaders speaking at these panels throughout the weekend. It was pretty cool to hear their perspective on a lot of issues + staying true to yourself when it comes to the whole instagram/influencer industry. While we were waiting on our Uber to head to the Supima Show, Oliva Culpo came out of the Samsung Building to head to her next appearance and we of course ran over to say hello & snap a picture with her. She is seriously so sweet and just as gorgeous as she appears on social media.

The Supima Show was super fun and I loved the space at Pier 59! This particular show was actually a Design Competition where participating designers from the nation’s top design schools presented their capsule collections of women’s eveningwear made exclusively with donated Supima cotton fabrics from the organization’s partners including AG Jeans, Brooks Brothers and Uniqlo. It was so amazing to experience a small piece of all the hard work that these graduates have put into their designs & to see their collections come to life on the runway. The winner of the 10th annual Supima Design Competition was FIT Student Alyssa Wardrop! Congrats, girl!!! She’s headed to Paris Fashion Week next!! Talk about dreams coming true, amiright!?

We kept things pretttty low-key for our first night in the Big Apple. Erika and I met up with Anna @pepperedinstyle and Jessica @jesskatt123 at the Gotham Hotel for a ‘Maskara in the City’ Makeup event. We sipped on rosé bubbles and nibbled on (one too many) macarons provided by Woops! (the pistachio was my favorite 🙂 while learning some tips & tricks for highlighting and contouring using the Mascara Beauty palettes. After the event, we headed to 5 Napkin Burger to meet up with a few more girls that Jess and Anna have made friends with thru blogging & Instagram. We had such a great time chatting, sipping on some good red wine and digging into some naughty eats! {lol} Chili Cheese Fries, anyone?? Whoops! 🤷🏻‍♀️

But first….coffee ☕️ we walked a couple blocks and grabbed some coffee at Gregory’s Coffee + a couple plant based/superfood Peanut Butter Power “balls” that were so damn delicious! We winded up walking over to the Zara store on 5th Ave and all of us totally got sucked in! {LOL} I think we were there for close to an hour perusing the store! Our first show, Galtiscopio, was scheduled for noon which meant it was time to hustle back to the room to get ready! We showed up a little late and unfortunately, even with priority standing, we did not get in. (I’m going to talk more about why you want to at least get priority standing in my NYFW Survival Guide that I’m working on.) Any way, we were all starving so we headed to grab a bite to eat at le pain quotidien before our 3pm show, Vaishali S. We learned our lesson from the Galtiscopio show and made sure to be EARLY, not just on time. Our whole group got seats on rows 1-3 since we were at the front of the line!

outside the Galtiscopio Show
Alexis and I got our picture snapped by one of the photographers at Estela Magazine.

Next stop was the Sam Edelman store in Soho for the premier of his Lifestyle Collection. I fell in love with the PJ Sets – so darling! We hung out, sipped on some champs, shopped and got our hair (or makeup) done by GlamSquad.

Our last show of the day was Cindy Monteiro, and again, we made sure to be early! We all got great seats for the show. starting to get the hang of this NYFW, thing. {ha}

Day 3 wasn’t too full…
Erika and I walked over to Joe & The Juice across from Bryant Park to grab some coffee + a smoothie for moi.
We did Runa Ray at noon followed by the Banana Republic x Olivia Palermo Presentation which took place inside the BR Store on 5th Ave. We had the opportunity to say hello & get our picture snapped with Oliva, sipped on some bubbles, ate mini macarons and shopped the new collection. From here, we headed over to Union Square for a Blogger Brunch at a great Italian Spot called Tarallucci.. There were 8 of us girls and we had the best time over wine, laughs & good food.

we all had plans to go to the Philipp Plein show & after party featuring Future & Niki Minaj on Saturday night, buuuut…the line was crazy long and we all decided that we’d rather spend our last night in New York hanging out and having fun rather than standing in line hoping to get into a show/event. A couple of girls from our group decided to wait it out – nearly 2 hours later, they never got in. I’m so glad we made the decision to ditch the line and grab some wine 🙂

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I spent Day 4 Solo. My first show was at 9am (hello!) I quickly ran to Pret a Manger for a large coffee + a beet juice and headed back to the room to shower up and get ready for my shows as Alyssa and Alexis snoozed it up! I Ubered over to Skylight Clarkson to catch Francesca Liberatore (9am) and Dan Liu (10am). I was running just a few minutes late and almost didn’t make it into Francesca Liberatore. I could just kick myself for being late to this show because I would have gotten a seat but instead I had to stand. The designs were absolutely gorgeous & the show as a whole was super cool – music & gallery. Just down the hall was the Dan Liu presentation where I got front row!

After my morning shows, I headed back to the room to give Alyssa and Alexis a hug goodbye, packed up the rest of my things and left my bags downstairs at the front desk so I could head out and enjoy the rest of my day. It was around noon & my final show of the day, Leanne Marshall wasn’t until 3pm. I decided to kill some time and head over to DryBar to get my hair shampooed and blown out. I washed my hair on Wednesday night before flying out on Thursday morning and hadn’t washed it since!! I did get my hair done by GlamSquad at that Sam Edelman event which was fun & my hair looked awesome but left it full of hairspray and product! {yikes!} By the time Sunday rolled around, the ole ‘do really needed a washing. I went to the Bryant Park location and my girl did such a great job!

My final show was Leanne Marshall. I was so so excited for this show! I got back to Skylight Clarkson super early and was at the front of the line. However, the line just kept forming and forming. This was one of the biggest crowds I had seen so far. I think at least 200 people didn’t make it in. There was a massive screen just outside the gallery so we watched the live show on the screen. Although I wasn’t inside, it was still pretty amazing and by far my favorite show of all. Her gowns were absolutely stunning and vibrant!

After the show, it was time to head back to the hotel, grab my bags and call an Uber to LGA.
After 4 full days in the city, I was definitely ready to get back home to CLT. NYFW was an absolut blast and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to go! I had so much fun getting to know the girls I went with from Charlotte + made some great new friends, too!

I hope you guys enjoyed the post! And my NYFW Vlog below. Looking back, I wish I had gotten more/different footage of the weekend but, keeping it real, vlogging is just awkward. I’ve been saying forever and ever that I’m going to create video content and I never do. I didn’t want to carry around our giant Canon 5D so I got the Canon G7x Mark II for NYFW. Its thee perfect compact camera! fits in even the smallest clutch, takes great pics and, its AMAZING for shooting video. So, I have no more excuses, right!?