What Is the Ny Fashion Week at Harper's Bazaar Icon Event?

Nary a unmarried designer heel flew through the air at Friday night's Harper'southward Boutique Icons party at The Plaza. But the star-studded Fashion Calendar week kicking-off gala was all about celebrating rule breakers, however.

This yr, the Carine Roitfeld-curated issue and annual blowout party showcases 10 institution-bucking and ground-breaking covers stars across industries: Christy Turlington, Regina King, Awkwafina, Shailene Woodley, Lakeith Stanfield, Céline Dion, Kate Moss, Alek Wek, Devon Aoki and Alicia Keys, who gave a powerhouse performance later in the evening.

Earlier announced guest Cardi B was a no show (and PR said that terminal twelvemonth'south sparring partner Nicki Minaj was likewise invited, but had another commitment). But, the diverse guest listing included cover stars Turlington and Woodley, Zendaya, her "Euphoria" co-star Sydney Sweeney, Aquaria, Janelle Monae, Ashley Graham, Slick Woods, Dapper Dan, Christian Siriano, Saweetie and Quavo (who enjoyed a canoodle-y moment for the paparazzi and gawking guests upstairs), Heron Preston at the DJ booth and Lauren Hutton.

"But thinking I could be a model was breaking a pretty big rule because I was 22 when I started. That's when girls were stopping dorsum then. This was 1964 or '65," the fashion and cinema legend told Fashionista, as she entered the political party. "I had a funny nose, a space between my teeth and slight cross eyes. Everything was wrong."

"I was unskilled labor and I hadn't finished school and I needed to run across the world. That was my most important thing because I was a piddling southern girl, that was all I knew," connected Hutton, who recently walked the Valentino couture track in Paris (and once received an help from Gigi Hadid on the Bottega Veneta catwalk at Milan Way Week). "And then I found out who was making the most coin — and I made myself much taller."

Too breaking boundaries in the deadening-to-modify fashion manufacture currently: body-positivity activist, model and writer Tess Holliday, who's at New York Fashion Calendar week to attend Rebecca Minkoff's presentation and walk the Chromat tenth anniversary show. "Literally by existing," she said, about her biggest rule-breaking achievement. "The fact that I'm able to exist plus size, fat, any y'all want to call information technology, and I get to work in the mode industry and exist in high fashion events — like in the room where typically people my size wouldn't exist able to go to is incredible — then aye, by existing."

After her NYFW commitments, Holiday will fly to London, for soon-to-exist confirmed "stuff with the British Fashion Council." Only, she won't be continuing to the final two weeks, where progress has been even slower when it comes to size-inclusivity on the runway — and in the stores.

"Everyone always asks me if I'chiliad doing Milan or Paris. I'grand like, 'They don't really include plus size withal.' I work a lot more in London than I practise in America. I experience like London and America at least kind of get information technology, but the other two… they don't actually get it yet," Holiday says. "Simply that comes with the designers that are in both places. They don't actually design for plus size yet simply we'll get in that location eventually. I'll make it happen."

Upstairs on the landing, where last year's infamous shoe incident occurred, guests star-gazed, schmoozed and sipped champagne out of oversize coupes — which were not conducive to fighting one's way through the well-heeled crowd without spillage, btw. Oscar de la Renta co-creative directors and Monse co-founders Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim shared their biggest fashion career rule-breaking moments, which led to their success in the industry.

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"I always spoke my listen since I was an assistant for Oscar," said Garcia. "I was told by the very few people exterior of the industry to watch my oral cavity considering I was always very outspoken and Oscar encouraged me to say what I idea." But at present that he and Kim are in accuse, would he give the aforementioned advice to his underlings?

"We applaud people that have the backbone to speak their listen, merely sure. There is a time and a identify for everything, don't become me wrong," he added. "But it takes guts to be able to say what you lot think."

Within the ballroom before Keys took have the phase, we found ceremonious rights activist, author and "Pod Salvage the People" podcast host DeRay Mckesson, hanging with Ricky from "Pose," Dyllón Burnside. Mckesson regularly wears his advancement for change via his signature Patagonia vest. He'south been steadfastly sporting the blue downward layer, which spawned its own Twitter account, since it kept him warm during the 2014 Ferguson protests following the police force killing of Michael Brown.

"You can clothing your values. That'south what I think nigh Pride and the rainbows," Mckesson said. "At that place is a function of it that's a commercialization of identity. The other part is: When I was a kid growing up, I wish that I had seen black men in rainbow t-shirts, you know? I wish I had some mark that people cared nigh me and I didn't have that."

The NYFW veteran will also be on hand this week to show support for two designers he respects for their activism: Prabal Gurung and friend Kerby Jean-Raymond'south Pyer Moss testify at the celebrated King's Theater in Brooklyn. "They're ii designers who use their platforms non but to diversify the rail — and just diversify the way they think almost clothing — but also to highlight messages," said Mckesson.

"We are living in a wild time and to ignore that ways that you only live in a dissimilar world," he continued. "Then the brands that pay attention to that, and responsibly enter the chat, will e'er be my favorites."

Click through the gallery below for more than scenes, on the red carpet and within the party, at the 2019Harper's Bazaar Icons by Carine Roitfeld event.

Top photo:Joe Schildhorn/BFA.com/Courtesy of Harper'due south Boutique

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