The first New York Fashion Week catwalk (1943), then called Press Week

Eleanor Lambert was a clotheshorse who pulled her weight for fashion throughout her life. In New York, as a publicist and PR pioneer, she was known as “The Empress of Seventh Avenue” (aka Fashion Avenue). She was the first to have created America’s Best-Dressed List as a means of selling American fashion, and even helped Grace Kelly pick out her wedding gown. But Lambert’s greatest contribution to fashion was the establishment of New York Fashion Week.

Around 1943, the German occupation of France threatened the world—not to mention fashion designers. The international press, despite its influence, simply couldn’t attend the Paris shows, so Lambert, the daughter of a circus promoter, seized this golden opportunity. She alone organized exhibitions in Manhattan as part of Press Week (as she called it), which featured American designers and their latest collections. In this way, she single-handedly managed to lift American designers into the exclusive world of haute couture, which up until then had remained a European privilege. The semiannual event was usually held in a hotel—either the Pierre or the Plaza—where fashion writers from around the world would crowd into a ballroom to get up close to the newest designs of the season.

During these years, the fashion industry in the States was purely under the spell of Lambert’s personality. With the help of ladies such as Harrison Williams, Millicent Rogers, Countess Haugwitz Reventlow (née Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress) and Babe Paley, American designers such as Norman Norell, Hattie Carnegie and Clare McCardell were promoted abroad. These were soon followed by Halston, Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene and Oscar de la Renta, all of which entered the international spotlight and which continue to enchant us to this day. Observing at how digitalized and interactive New York Fashion Week has become, it is inspirational to look at the past for a glimpse into the elegance and atmosphere of what once was.

Photo courtesy image of CondeNast.com