What September Means
Happy Fashion Month!
September 11, 2025, marks the start of New York Fashion Week for the spring/summer 2026 season. With shows spanning from today until next Tuesday we will see the collections of many designers, including the beloved Micheal Kors, Sandy Liang and Collina Strada.
September is almost like January in fashion. It is full of promise and there is a certain sparkle in your eye; with so many new beginnings coming this fashion month, I think we should take a pit stop and remember how we got here.
Twenty years ago on September 10, 2005, we began the spring/summer 2006 season, with models like Lily Donaldson, Jessica Stam, and Doutzen Kroes dominating every runway show. During this season, Galliano was still at Dior, Luella Bartley still participated in fashion week, and lilac was the color of the season, there were many odes to military jackets, bulky heels, and thick ribbon tied around the waist in the shape of a bow. All things that don’t sound too foreign to our 2025 minds, and that is because the fashion cycle notoriously circles back around every twenty years.
““Oftentimes it is incredibly necessary to understand the past of fashion before you can truly grasp and participate in the future of fashion””
Now, with the rise of digital media and fast fashion, the trend cycle seems to have sped up quite a bit but, when you really take a step back and investigate our past, you’ll see that the true trend cycle is right on schedule.
Most of my style is taken from 2000s to 2010s runway fashion — I find it to resonate with me the most. To see it circling back into our lives is so exciting. Oftentimes, it is incredibly necessary to understand the past of fashion before you can truly grasp and participate in the future of fashion. Fashion history was a huge part of my journey to loving fashion, it started with the book ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and my love for historical fashion (and fiction!) began.
In the Spring/Summer 2006 season, we saw a few medieval references in the shows, most notably in Balenciaga and creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière, could’ve only referenced that era if he took the time to study and understand it. Throughout fashion, from 20 years to 200 years ago we see references of the past and glimpses of what we believe the future will be. It's always interesting to think back on what once was and how we can put our individual, modern spin on it.
As we step back into the world of runway fashion this September, I hope we all look around and realize how far we have come in twenty years, how our clothes show our growth and how the past has impacted us. Let September be your January, let the new beginnings within fashion prompt your own, in every show you view let yourself see a bit of who you want to be and who you once were because they are both so important to who you are.
