• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, September 11, 2024

Luxury brand Loewe staged a Saks Fifth Avenue takeover 

After six days of energy, celebrities and unwelcome traffic, New York Fashion Week Spring ’25 is in the books, leaving marketers to ponder the event’s ultimate impact. And while summing up the scattered events has always been impossible – there’s not much of a throughline from Ralph Lauren classics to Luar’s avant-garde styles –marketers ranging from Saks and Porsche to Walmart and Coach found ways to get attention.

Coach got plenty of buzz for its show on New York’s High Line, with Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of presidential candidate Kamala Harris, walking the runway in a black miniskirt and an “I Heart New York” T-shirt. Many of the looks pulled from what the Tapestry-owned brand describes as the “counter-cultural vocabulary of skate, heavy metal and new wave.”

Coach also introduced a new take on the Tabby bag, called the Chain Tabby 26, and the Soho Sneaker, a cross-trainer that looks like it fell out of 1989.

The brand used Fashion Week as a springboard to launch fall updates to its “Unlock Your Courage” ad campaign, where a Coach bag comes to life and drags actor Elle Fanning through her pre-audition paces.

Designer Brandon Maxwell, an American sportswear designer best known for $3,000 dresses, showed off his luxury sportswear line for an A-list invitation-only crowd. But he followed it up with a two-day Walmart pop-up featuring his designs for the retailer’s Scoop and Free Assembly lines. It’s Walmart Fashion’s first-ever fashion week.

Saks got plenty of buzz by teaming up with Loewe, with the luxury brand’s takeover of the flagship. Garden-themed windows, towering vegetable sculptures and an in-store juice bar were part of the show, as was a party that drew the likes of Meg Ryan, Tracee Ellis Ross and Greta Lee.

Other celebrity sightings were at Bloomingdale’s, which partied with Italian fashion brands and stars from HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” and the elusive Madonna, who wowed onlookers at the Luar show. (David Banda, the star’s 18-year-old son, made his runway debut for Off-White.)

Color is always an essential part of the equation. The Pantone Color Institute weighed in with the hues it expects to be the season standouts, including greens (Lime Cream, White Grape and Kashmir) and neutrals (like Bran and Cocoon). But the real news came in a first, with Pantone teaming up with Porsche to create Turbonite, the first time the report has included a customized color from an auto brand.

Created to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 911 Turbo, Porsche describes the color as “innovative, timeless, strong, but not loud.”