Pyer Moss Announces Plans For A Drive-In New York Fashion Week Event

The future of the fashion show, at least as we know it, seems increasingly uncertain. Amid the global pandemic, fashion weeks around the world have moved to digital-only format, starting with the men’s shows that were scheduled to kick off next month in Milan, Paris, and London. Whether this trend will continue into the fall remains unclear. Saint Laurent is the first major brand to announce it would be moving off the 2020 schedule entirely, and it’s likely that others will follow suit.

Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss is proposing an alternative to a virtual experience that is primed for the age of social distancing: a drive-in fashion happening. Set to take place during New York Fashion Week this September, the event will play host to a premiere of American, Also, a feature film documenting the two years leading up to the boundary-pushing Pyer Moss spectacular that took place last September at Kings Theatre in Flatbush, Brooklyn. A trailer for the forthcoming film was uploaded to the designer’s personal Instagram account earlier this month. In it, behind-the-scenes footage from the show at the historic New York landmark is spliced with archival clips of the neighbourhood as the designer narrates. “So many of us, when we get opportunities and huge platforms, the first thing we do is leave,” says Jean-Raymond over a soundtrack of choral music. “Slowly but surely, I’ve been finding my way back… now we’re finally home.”

The New York premiere will be followed by a series of drive-in screenings in multiple cities across the country, exact details for which are to be released later this summer. Though Jean-Raymond is not planning to show a new collection, there will be a drop of clothing to coincide with the event. As with previous Pyer Moss events, the guest-list will be a combination of invited press and friends of the brand, with a percentage of tickets available to the public.

“It’s always been our mission to show the amount of thinking and labouring that goes behind putting together a collection — we’ve been slowing down the speed of how much we produce and improving the quality of what we produce throughout the years,” said Jean-Raymond via email. “This film aims to show the love and care our entire company puts into every single moment we create and will show that we appreciate fashion as an art form and communication tool that we’ve used to embolden a community around us.”

With only a soft blueprint in place for the re-opening of New York City, the fate of fashion week still hangs in the balance. Regardless of what governmental measures will be in place at the time, the logistics of Jean-Raymond’s concept will be complicated to say the least, starting with the location. Save for one much-buzzed-about diner-turned-movie theatre in Queens, there are no drive-in venues in the city. And that’s not to mention the issue of transportation. That said, Jean-Raymond has always been the kind of designer to think big. With an audience of 3,000 and a choir of 70-plus voices, his last show set a new precedent for fashion experiences, one that reverberated on social media channels for weeks after. If Jean-Raymond can pull this off, he’ll be leading the way at a time when the fashion world is in desperate need of solutions.