The Harper's Bazaar Icons Party at New York Fashion Week

Nary a unmarried designer heel flew through the air at Friday night'southward Harper's Boutique Icons party at The Plaza. Simply the star-studded Mode Week kick-off gala was all most jubilant dominion breakers, notwithstanding.

This year, the Carine Roitfeld-curated result and almanac blowout party showcases ten establishment-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.

Before appear guest Cardi B was a no prove (and PR said that last yr'due south sparring partner Nicki Minaj was also invited, but had another commitment). But, the diverse invitee list included cover stars Turlington and Woodley, Zendaya, her "Euphoria" co-star Sydney Sweeney, Aquaria, Janelle Monae, Ashley Graham, Slick Forest, 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 berth and Lauren Hutton.

Lauren Hutton. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Harper'south Bazaar

"Just 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 fable told Fashionista, as she entered the party. "I had a funny nose, a infinite between my teeth and slight cantankerous 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 affair because I was a little southern daughter, that was all I knew," continued Hutton, who recently walked the Valentino couture runway in Paris (and in one case received an assistance from Gigi Hadid on the Bottega Veneta catwalk at Milan Fashion Week). "So I found out who was making the almost money — and I made myself much taller."

Also breaking boundaries in the wearisome-to-change fashion industry 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 10th anniversary show. "Literally past existing," she said, about her biggest dominion-breaking achievement. "The fact that I'k able to exist plus size, fat, whatever you desire to call it, and I get to work in the way industry and be in high fashion events — similar in the room where typically people my size wouldn't exist able to go to is incredible — then yeah, past existing."

Tess Vacation. Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Harper'southward Boutique

Later on her NYFW commitments, Vacation volition fly to London, for soon-to-be confirmed "stuff with the British Fashion Quango." But, she won't be standing to the last ii weeks, where progress has been fifty-fifty slower when it comes to size-inclusivity on the runway — and in the stores.

"Anybody always asks me if I'1000 doing Milan or Paris. I'1000 like, 'They don't really include plus size yet.' I work a lot more in London than I do in America. I feel like London and America at least kind of get it, but the other two… they don't really get it yet," Holiday says. "But that comes with the designers that are in both places. They don't really design for plus size still but nosotros'll get at that place somewhen. I'll make it happen."

Upstairs on the landing, where final year'south infamous shoe incident occurred, guests star-gazed, schmoozed and sipped champagne out of oversize coupes — which were not conducive to fighting i'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 mode career dominion-breaking moments, which led to their success in the industry.

Recommended Articles

Related Articles:
The Annual 'Harper'due south Bazaar' Icons Party Featured Cardi B Throwing a Shoe at Nicki Minaj and a Christina Aguilera Concert
We Partied With Kim Kardashian, Jared Leto and All the Victoria's Underground Models at 'Harper'south Boutique' Icons
How Model and Activist Tess Holliday Keeps on Fighting Fashion Industry Standards

Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia. Photo: Joe Schildhorn/BFA.com/Courtesy of Harper'due south Bazaar

"I always spoke my mind since I was an banana for Oscar," said Garcia. "I was told by the very few people outside of the industry to watch my oral fissure because I was always very outspoken and Oscar encouraged me to say what I thought." But now that he and Kim are in charge, would he give the same advice to his underlings?

"We applaud people that have the backbone to speak their mind, but sure. There is a fourth dimension and a identify for everything, don't become me wrong," he added. "Only it takes guts to be able to say what you call up."

Inside the ballroom earlier Keys took have the stage, nosotros institute ceremonious rights activist, writer and "Pod Save the People" podcast host DeRay Mckesson, hanging with Ricky from "Pose," Dyllón Burnside. Mckesson regularly wears his advocacy for change via his signature Patagonia belong. He'southward been steadfastly sporting the blue downwards layer, which spawned its own Twitter account, since it kept him warm during the 2014 Ferguson protests following the police killing of Michael Brown.

"You can wear your values. That's what I think about Pride and the rainbows," Mckesson said. "In that location is a part of information technology that's a commercialization of identity. The other part is: When I was a kid growing up, I wish that I had seen blackness men in rainbow t-shirts, you know? I wish I had some marker that people cared about me and I didn't have that."

The NYFW veteran volition also be on mitt this calendar week to show support for two designers he respects for their activism: Prabal Gurung and friend Kerby Jean-Raymond'south Pyer Moss show at the celebrated King's Theater in Brooklyn. "They're two designers who use their platforms not simply to diversify the runway — and merely diversify the mode they think nigh clothing — merely also to highlight letters," said Mckesson.

"We are living in a wild time and to ignore that ways that you only alive in a different world," he connected. "And so the brands that pay attention to that, and responsibly enter the conversation, will always be my favorites."

Click through the gallery below for more scenes, on the cherry-red carpeting and inside the political party, at the 2019Harper's Bazaar Icons past Carine Roitfeld event.

Elevation photo:Joe Schildhorn/BFA.com/Courtesy of Harper's Bazaar

Never miss the latest fashion industry news. Sign upwards for the Fashionista daily newsletter.

Share this post