Despite London being a more expensive city, Milan topping the list of the most expensive places to hold a fashion show, New York designers and brands also struggle with the rising cost of fashion shows.

New York Fashion Week has also been the brunt of some harsh complaining about losing its luster and its inability to attract international press and buyers, which leaves those who can afford to decamp to Paris for their shows and/or sales appointments. (That said, London Fashion Week announced it would forgo its June 2025 show week to have designers invest resources into sales instead.) Thus, it’s clear that fashion could use a fairy godmother.
 
Enter KFN, a new venture formed by Spring Place/Spring Studios’ Imad Izemrane and his partner Keith Abell, who together formed N4XT Experiences, a live event company that owns Los Angeles Fashion Week, among others, and Kilburn Media’s CEO Mark Manuel, who is also co-founder of KF Fashion. They plucked former IMG president Leslie Russo, the current founder of The Culture Shop, as the project architect to support designer show infrastructure and a long-term vision for the future of American fashion.
 
While not directly involved beyond helping to facilitate designer connections and coordinating logistics once plans are rolled out, the CFDA remains the official organizer of NYFW, owning the fashion calendar. Thus, the innovation is championed by its CEO, Steven Kolb. CFDA director of fashion week initiatives, Joseph Maglieri, stated that beyond organizing the calendar, they work to “provide resources to support the designers showing and the industry at large. The KFN Venue Collective advances that mission with even more coordination and logistics to strengthen NYFW, which also supports attendees worldwide.”

The breakfast event at The Standard Hotel was attended by many of New York’s beloved designers such as Dao-Yi and AnOnlychild’s Maxwell Osborne of Public School fame; Prabal Gurung; Rachel Scott of Diotima; Henry Zankov; Jackson Wiederhoeft; Presley Oldham; Aaron Potts; and industry leaders such as Felita Harris of Raise Fashion; and Tenique Bernard, public relations executive who formed Black in Fashion, among others. Many in the room participated in round table discussions so fashion’s core voices- the designers- had some input.

 
After an intro by Izemrane, Russo took the stage and rolled out the multiple-phase project to overhaul, boost, and monetize NYFW. She listed some impressive stats that prove, however expensive for designers, NYFW generates money for businesses beyond fashion.

“New York has over 8.3 million residents, and 65 million people visit the city every year on average during fashion week; they spend about $2,500. In New York, Fashion Week is still the highest revenue-generating event in New York out of the Super Bowl, the New York City Marathon as well as the US Open; you’d be hard-pressed to find better market conditions anywhere to launch a new platform or a brand,” she said, also noting that the EDC study on NYFW in 2015 estimated the amount of revenue it draws at $1 b which has recently dropped to $600 million.

Russo described a five-phase plan, with phase 1, commonly known as today’s NYFW, set to roll out in September, along with a B2B. Settling the debate between a centralized hub and individual show spaces, (which in the past have created logistical challenges for showgoers), KFN is proposing The Venue Collective, “a decentralized network of multiple venues built to alleviate the operational and financial difficulties that have long made NYFW inaccessible to many designers,” according to a statement.

The venues will be free, which drew a round of applause. They range from runway show spaces to showroom spaces and venues for holding strictly fashion press and buyer breakfasts for smaller designers to introduce their collections. The venues will include logistical back-of-house support, backstage setups, equipment, rental needs, street permits, and a wireless show communications system. While Russo was clear that designers would need to provide front-of-house PR support, models, and the goods, it wasn’t entirely clear who was responsible for aspects such as lighting, sound, seating, and catering.

“We envision venue collections of traditional studio spaces, historical spots in New York, iconic buildings, new backdrops, and galleries. There is no better backdrop for fashion than New York, and there is no better ad campaign for New York City than NYFW,” Russo continued.

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With a map of Manhattan on one of the presentation slides, various pastel circles indicated zones of the venues, ranging from FiDi to west of Soho, West Chelsea, Hudson Yards, and Rockefeller Center, which has been forming its own fashion ecosystem lately.

The venue has an ‘invitation only’ clause, and applications are currently being accepted. The invitation only had some folks wondering how that would manifest. KFN will require designers to commit to three consecutive seasons. KFN has acknowledged early commitments from established names and emerging talents.

While it wasn’t exactly clear how this would be paid for, Russo told FashionNetwork.com after the presentation that partnerships would still be involved, though perhaps in a different way. Currently, the group is still negotiating with the desired venue targets.

“Some NYFW models we’ve already had, partnerships and sponsorships, will remain. But they won’t be in a big activation area. We’re going to have new ways of getting them in as partners. Investments are part of it, and so is digital [phase 5], ticketing,—which we’ll get eventually in phases 2 and 3—and bringing consumers in. This diversifies our revenue source and changes everything. Are partners more likely to sponsor singular shows or buy into a giant entertainment platform? Look at Coachella. When we start to envision those sorts of things, that changes the entire model of what we’re trying to do,” she continued.

On one slide of the presentation that outlined stakeholders, such as designers, press, buyers, and influencers, among the investors listed was Blackstone, where Abell had once been a managing director.

Phases 2,3, 4, and 5, aimed to roll out by 2027, involve B2C-driven entertainment and experiential events through a fashion lens; healthier support from state and local government and digital components that would corral schedules, events, local businesses near the venues and more into a handy app with further details to come.

Phase 4 involves more support from state and local governments, and the EDC has long been a champion, as has the maligned Mayor Adams, who was among the recent mayors to help promote NYFW. At a time when the federal administration is looking to defund states of crucial funding for programs like Medicaid, this could prove to be a tough ask despite its potential revenue generation. Russo has a plan for that as well.

“Without a strong plan and vision to rally around, it’s hard for government entities to support. To use the example of the NFL, if you’re signing up, whether you’re a sponsor or you’re bringing revenue or support to something like the NFL, essentially what you’re doing is saying you know that there’s going to be 32 teams that show up who’s playing what the schedule is, where it’s going to be broadcast. It’s really up to everyone here in the room to provide that structure for people to give us the support we need,” Russo noted.

In this sense, the CFDA is crucial to the success of KFN’s vision for NYFW and American fashion in general.

“CFDA owns and schedules the fashion week schedule. So that’s our role, our authority, and we’ll always be there. KFN’s new platform folds into NYFW among other groups of producers in a big way. My primary interest is in the venue, city, and state funding part of it,” Kolb said.

KFN’s lead and ability to create this infrastructure could also benefit smaller group events within NYFW, such as Harlem’s Fashion Row, Black in Fashion, RaiseFashion, and New York Men’s Day, among others. KFN’s plan could also easily boost those initiatives. The takeaway? There is no need for pessimism, but rather positivity to imagine what NYFW could become.