NYFW: My first time and Day 1 Outfit

New York Fashion Week has been a dream that I never thought I would be able to do.

Without making myself sounding like a dinosaur (hee hee), I grew up at a time where my only access to fashion week collections were magazines like Vogue. It wasn’t until the Style Network (sadly no longer in existence), would play fashion shows late at night that I was finally able to see fashion shows in video. I remember sitting in front of my parents’ tv watching intently and in awe of fashion! Then as an avid Sex and the City fan, I would just savor any time NYFW was part of the story line! Does anyone remember when Carrie walked the D&G show and was fashion roadkill?! Iconic.

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“Every Year The Women Of New York leave the past behind and look forward for the future. This is known as FASHION WEEK.” ~ Carrie Bradshaw,  Sex And The City

I have fond memories of being a twenty-something year old, sitting at my built-in desk in my bachelorette pad, checking out all of the pictures of each designers’ collections as they were uploaded on what was then style.com (now you can find them on Vogue.com under “runway”). Since it was pre-pinterest (yup that’s how long ago it was) and pre-social media, I would save my favorite pictures on to my computer and make a file, then I would try to re-create them with my affordable clothes. This whole time, these runway shows were exclusive to magazine editors, buyers, celebrities and socialites all of which I wasn’t, so I firmly believed I would never ever ever get to attend and then…

I saw bloggers, real women who weren’t any of the above, at fashion week! It was 2010, I hadn’t started a blog yet, but would read other ones and I saw Andy from Style Scrapbook and Susie Bubble from Style Bubble (some of the O.G. fashion bloggers might I add) post about attending some of the biggest names in fashion’s shows! I was amazed that these ladies that I related to had created their IN to these shows! As bloggers became more popular I remember reading and hearing about the resistance from editors to accept bloggers in the shows and even *gasp* let them sit front row. Little did they know the rise of the influencer was upon them and now here we are.

Many of you know I have been blogging for years, so why did I finally decide to go to New York and make it happen now?

I mean I’m a new mom with a 9 month old, you would think I would have made it happen before it meant leaving my son for a few days. Well, allow me to explain the correlation. Even after I saw the door open to bloggers at NYFW, I didn’t feel worthy of attending and was embarrassed to even reach out to these brands and PR companies because I was scared of the rejection. How does that relate to being a mom? One of the biggest lessons or benefits to this motherhood gig is that I have other more important things to worry about so I simply don’t care what other people think as much and am not scared of rejection like I used to. Plus, I want to show my son that he can go after what he wants in life with hard work and integrity (I might go into this in a later post) so I had the mindset of making this happen once and for all. I had a long talk with my husband because this meant he would be daddy daycare for a few days and with his support I proceeded!

First thought was oh s@*t, where do I start?

Being a newbie at this, I had no idea where to start so I consulted with friends like Kali and Tanya who had attended NYFW several times. I was thankful for their guidance and generosity with their info. That and my many google searches (googling “how to go to NYFW as a blogger” “how to pitch myself to NYFW brands”, etc) set me on the right track and then from there I hustled away! When my son would go to sleep at night, I would run into my home office and email PR companies, brands, contacts I had made along my blogging journey, etc and guess what? I’m not ashamed to say that as a small blogger there were more no’s and non-responses than yes’s but all of that really tested how bad I wanted to go. With every no I felt compelled to go above and beyond for those PR companies and brands that gave me a yes (plus also feel a sense of gratitude to them). I told myself, if I got more than 3 invitations I would book my flight and then the invitations slowly trickled in and I booked my flight! I lined up 3-4 shows a day.

I had focused so much on getting invited that I panicked when it came to the biggest question of all WHAT TO WEAR?! I shopped the weeks leading up to NYFW and made a mental note that next time I’ll remember to start shopping early. Each look as you will see has a different vibe and the first vibe of this outfit pretty sums up this whole experience: being out of my comfort zone. As I was getting ready for my first NYFW show of the day (and ever, oh the pressure), I started getting nervous because I had no idea what to expect and here I was wearing something I wouldn’t wear in San Diego (I later realized that is the whole point of NYFW outfits). As soon as I got off of my lyft and saw a line of women wearing anything and everything their fashionable heart desired I lost the nervousness, and I knew I was home! 

Stay tuned as I share my NYFW coverage, more outfits and some behind the scenes stuff!

SHOP MY LOOK

Top | Bottoms | Sunglasses | Shoes | Handbag | Lipstick

All pictures taken by Tuy of White Tee Black Dress.