New York Fashion Week‘s Spring 2025 season was filled with star-studded catwalks, immersive show venues and exciting collection concepts, but what makes NYFW unforgettable for the actual designers? From Sandy Liang to Brandon Maxwell to PatBo‘s Patricia Bonaldi, the talent behind 15 of New York’s buzziest brands were kind enough chat with the Fashionista team backstage and answer our burning question of the week: What’s the ultimate payoff from participating in NYFW?
For independent designers especially, staging a show requires significant time and resources, and they all have their own reasons and feelings about what makes that investment worth it. Keep scrolling to read what they each consider to be the ultimate, hard-earned fashion week “win.”
Christian Juul Nielsen, Aknvas
Photo: Launchmetrics Spotlight
“The fact that everyone’s here and it’s all happening at the same time. It’s very difficult to get all the models, editors, you guys, visitors and everyone together at the same time. So all my buyers travel to New York, and they meet me here. We actually opened up my creative studio with my sketches, my fabrics, everything. I invite my buyers in there, and they see me in my real universe, what the brand is all about.”