NYFW F/W 17 recap part 1

New York Fashion Week has always been a longing dream. Especially as someone who had been extremely in love with and intrigued by the fashion industry, yet possessed zero background, experience and/or resources to get into the actual circle, making it to NYFW seemed pretty much far-fetched.  On that account, you can imagine how thrilled I became earlier this year, when I learned from StyleCollective that it is actually attainable to attend Fashion Week even as a blogger at the *growth phase*.

I’ll save all the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the trip to another potential blog post. Fast forward to Feb 9th, the day we were supposed to fly into NYC first thing in the morning, with 5 or more runway shows lined up in my google calendar. You probably already know where this is going – the biggest snow storm in this winter hit the city of New York, delayed / cancelled all the flights, and long story short – thank you so much mother nature – we missed the entire day of 2/9 and half of the day of 2/10. I’d be totally lying if I said at that time I didn’t feel any disappointment or discouragement – despite of  all the effort, I was ready for almost everything unexpected but not this, not the one thing over which I had the least control.

But I’ll stop my whining at this point, because looking back now this NYFW turned out to be one of the most exhilarating trips / experiences I have ever had. After I started shooting my daily outfits with my husband and posting on Instagram two years ago, I was hesitating to start a real blog because I didn’t know if I was good enough to pull it off. I wasn’t even sure if I could be called a “fashion blogger” by then. If launching lovefromrachel.com in 2016 was the first leap I finally had the guts to take through this journey of identifying and defining myself as a blogger / influencer, this very first NYFW adventure was the next and maybe even more significant one. For both of them I feel truly grateful to my husband, without whom I would never have imagined to come this far.

Now, without further ado, join me in re-experiencing these wonderfully mind-blowing 84 hours, filled up with layered ruffles, chiffon and sequins, 10-inch heels, vampy lipsticks, backstage mirrors, camera flashlights, and non-stopping clinking of champagne flutes.

Day 1 Feb 10th

Overall the first 12-hour was a breezy comparing to the following days.

12:30 PM, landed at LGA. We checked in at the hotel, freshened up and headed right to the first stop of the afternoon – Stylinity‘s NYFW Style Soiree at the Lulu Frost Showroom. Like I indicated earlier, everything NYFW starts with bubbles, and not sure about you but I won’t complain about it! This Stylinity event was an exquisite gathering of fashion bloggers and such, which I found as a great way to ease myself into the mood of NYFW before it got into full swing.  Two hours later, I ended up finding the StyleCollective *clique* and naturally a bunch of us moved on to SOHO for a quick bite.

4:30 PM, we found ourselves in a cozy homey tapas place called  Boqueria NYC. I have to admit, one of my personal highlights during NYFW was the conversation with other bloggers. The majority of them – packed with Ugh moments and Aha moments – happened either at the very few sit-down meals we had time for or on Ubers / yellow cabs.

6:30 PM, my last fun stop for the first day was at the Caravan Stylist Studio, where I got this crazy beautiful stenciled hair. Conveniently tucked in a quiet and secluded hotel, this stylist studio is perfect for people who would need a pause from the NYFW madness.  

What I was wearing for the day was this Zara sweatshirt with delicate and eclectic embroidery details, paired with my go-to airport pants and shoes – faux leather leggings and Anouck boots by Alexander Wang.

Day 2 Feb 11th

Me and this cutie from Boston – Holly (check out her blog here!) – had a great amount of laughs (and maybe a few drops of tears) together during all the 4 days. I’ll get into our adventures more in Part 2 of the NYFW recap, but for now you can take a glimpse from this shot! Meanwhile, Holly has done a super lovely Vlog in her blog post for her fashion week journey,  watch it and you’ll love it as I do!

6 PM, the next stop on my calendar was “dinner at TAO Downtown”, with my beautiful crew from StyleCollective. Dinner was an absolute blast with TAO’s glamorous decor and scrumptious dishes. The only problem was we had too good of a time and was late for our last show of the day, Francesca Liberatore. Don’t ever underestimate your commute time during NYFW, lesson definitely learned.

As a wrap let’s take a second to go through things on me on Day 2. For this day I picked an off-the-shoulder top by JI OH with faux fur sleeves in contrasting color, together with a shining sequined skirt, and finished the look with a Teddy coat by ASOS. Not a leather-choker girl most of the time, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and embrace this champagne choker by Ettika (use lovefrom_rachel for 15% off)- and I was so happy I did.