New York Fashion Week 2021: Christian Siriano presented style as an escape with bold, colourful looks in his spring/summer 2022 live show – plus a performance by pop songstress Marina
Fashion is the ultimate escapism for many in a pandemic world that has been largely devoid of joy – designer Christian Siriano leaned into that idea of fashion as a getaway, kicking off New York Fashion Week with a colourful bang on Tuesday night, September 7.
Siriano returned to New York City’s Gotham Hall to showcase his spring/summer collection, which he said was inspired by a “simpler time” and “the Italian women in my life”.
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“In a time when so many of us need an escape from the world, fashion is a great place to explore. For this collection I went back to a simpler time and looked to my past,” Siriano wrote in the show notes. “The old photographs of my grandmother in the 60s and 70s on holiday in Positano wearing her apricot orange dress inspired an Italian coastal collection filled with colour and joy.
“I wanted it to feel powerful and strong but also romantic like any true Italian woman.”
The buzz of Gotham Hall was noticeably quieter than in years past, with most – but not all – attendees wearing masks inside the show after displaying their vaccine QR codes at the entrance checkpoint.
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The show also featured a surprise performance: Marina Diamandis, known mononymously as Marina, took the stage in a bright orange minidress with multicoloured fringed sleeves to belt out her hits as the models strutted down the runway.
The show’s finale included of a group of models exclusively revealing a variety of denim pieces from the upcoming collaboration between Siriano and Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans.
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While most designers went fully digital during an expanded New York Fashion Week in the spring that stretched the traditional calendar, Siriano – whose original claim to fame was on the design competition TV has remained committed to the runway since the start of the pandemic. Siriano’s autumn/winter collection was inspired by a jaunt to Aspen, Colorado, to visit family for the first time in a year.
- Katie Holmes, Clueless star Alicia Silverstone, rapper Lil’ Kim and Real Housewives of New York’s Leah McSweeney were just a few celebrities in the front row
- Siriano, who rose to fame through TV show Project Runway, presented fashion as a getaway amid the pandemic with Italian 60s and 70s coastal pieces