Inside NYFW With a Luxury Wardrobe Curator

New York Fashion Week happens twice per year and is the ultimate showcase of New York-based designers such as Khaite, Tory Burch, Simkai, Proneza, Prabal Gurung, Jason Wu, and Ulla Johnson. This magical event is the birthplace of ideas, perspectives, and inspiration to bring back to our clients’ wardrobes. I’ve been building women’s wardrobes for 16 years, and the foundation of my work with Watson Style Group is the belief that a great wardrobe should last a lifetime. Our approach is rooted in the idea of slow versus fast fashion. We believe in slow fashion, and for us, that often means luxury, but never conspicuous consumption. It means building a high-quality wardrobe thoughtfully, investing in the right pieces and actually wearing them. I’m a huge advocate for owning one $1,000 pair of boots instead of 10 $100 pairs. Invest, choose correctly, and wear it forever. At Watson, our expertise is our clients, and knowing them well is what allows us to be discerning during fashion week. We’re looking for pieces that will add dimension and longevity to their closets and deepen their joy when dressing. Everything begins with conversations about work, life, and play, and how they want to feel in each. A client’s current collection informs every new choice, and their digital closet allows us to make sharp, strategic choices when we’re shopping for additions. We know exactly where they’re going for the whole season so we can style them perfectly for every event. We curate luxury wardrobes; we don’t shop for consumption’s sake. We want our clients to wear and love what’s already in their closets, and every new addition should have a purpose. During NYFW, our team divides and conquers. When we’re not at a show or preview, we’re in shopping appointments focused on “buy now, wear now” pieces that allow us to build our clients’ fall wardrobes in real time. The week becomes a mix of looking ahead and acting now: preordering pieces from upcoming collections while purchasing from the current season. A typical day starts with a team meeting to discuss which clients we’re focusing on and review their individual shopping lists. From there, we might attend a show and then meet with our advisers at different brands, snapping photos and building styling boards as we go so everything stays organized by client. We can work this way because each client’s entire collection is on our phones in their Watson Atelier digital closet. While we’re shopping in real time, we can pull up her wardrobe, see what she already owns and make thoughtful choices about what will actually add value. Because we encourage our clients to invest in their wardrobes where it makes sense, we’re watching each runway show through the lens of what actually translates into everyday life. What can a woman wear to work, to dinner with friends, or repeatedly throughout a season? This is where 16 years of dressing women really comes in handy. As we watch these beautiful garments parade down the runway, we know what works on a woman’s body and what doesn’t. Sometimes a piece is incredibly close, but it misses the mark. At a luxury price point, the details matter. The fit, fabrication, construction, and versatility have to justify the investment. It’s about finding something that feels incredibly special. We want the client to say, “Wow, I never would have picked this, but I love it.” That’s how we know we’ve done our job well. Fashion week serves as a time to deepen our relationship with the brand and understand the intention of the designer and the garment’s true potential. This helps us connect with what we’re purchasing and more authentically introduce pieces we love into clients’ wardrobes. We’re matching incredibly talented designers with consumers who are going to feel beautiful in their clothing. It’s the ultimate fashion love story. This year at NYFW, we’re seeing bold color and texture, which allow us to add dimension to wardrobes in a way that’s polished and intentional. Rachel Scott at Proenza showed us that there’s no right or wrong way a woman should dress. Pieces that are both wearable and interesting allow us to do our job well, and she consistently delivers. It’s a pursuit of perfection among millions of possibilities. When we build luxury wardrobes, we’re thinking about the experience of the woman wearing the outfit, and that experience begins the moment we start sourcing. This isn’t a process of trial and error. It’s a pursuit of perfection among millions of possibilities. New York Fashion Week is our ultimate playground for blending objectivity and creativity while making fashion choices for clients we care deeply about. For most people, runway shows can feel unattainable and almost disconnected from reality. I’m always asked, “Do people actually wear that stuff?” What most people don’t realize is that a runway show is communicating a complete vision. From the music and casting to the styling, silhouettes, and fabrics, the designer is expressing the sentiment of the season. This is where the term IYKYK really makes its mark. Yes, people actually wear these things. Much of what you see on the runway will make its way into stores, and those ideas will eventually be diffused across the rest of fashion. I want our clients to get the good stuff straight from the source: not the diluted, cheaper-made interpretation, but the original, beautifully executed version that has the power to transform a closet. I champion luxury goods because they give me what I need to style women in a meaningful way, and that has nothing to do with labels or monograms. Luxury gives us the construction techniques that take longer but allow a garment to fit beautifully. It gives us fabrics that drape, move, and hug a curve in ways that less expensive materials often can’t. Luxury gets us closest to the designer’s original vision as opposed to the diffused version that was made faster and cheaper. That’s why I think of luxury as future vintage. We build luxury wardrobes because we want the best version, we want it to last, and ultimately, we want to create a collection that can be worn, loved, and revered for decades. I don’t want you turning over your wardrobe every season or disposing of pieces after a year or two. Buy in a way that would make you cringe at the thought of tossing something. Choose the piece you can’t imagine living without, rather than the one that will give you a good time for a few months and then lose its luster. What I’m most excited about this season is texture. I love being able to layer and create visual volume with pieces that have dimension, movement, and personality. Texture gives us another tool to make an outfit interesting without simply adding more, and it allows personal style to come through in a way that feels nuanced and individual. Khaite, founded in New York City by Catherine Holstein, is the ultimate cool-girl brand. For spring, the collection felt soft and romantic , blending bouncy silks with texture and movement that give the garments a personality you can interact with as you wear them. It’s this kind of design genius that has us adding Khaite to almost every wardrobe we build. The brand has an incredible ability to fill shopping gaps across very different clients because the ready-to-wear and accessories are equally distinctive, wearable, and style-defining. Our team unanimously agreed that this was Khaite’s strongest collection to date. Jonathan Simkhai gave us interest, intrigue, and fringe. We love a mixed-media moment because it makes the styling so much more versatile. He’s known for being sensual and architectural, but my favorite part of this collection is the movement from draped fringe, tiered netting, and scalloped leather. Prabal Gurgung offered draping in gorgeous colors, giving us the tools to add life and energy to the wardrobes of clients who know they don’t need to play it safe to show up feeling like themselves. Ulla Johnson is a personal favorite and the show that always reminds me why I love fashion. The moment the music starts, I choke up, and then I see these soft, silky florals bouncing toward me. It feels light and joyful, just as fashion should. Her designs radiate joy and remind us of the joy we should feel when getting dressed. That joy will look different for everyone, but Ulla reminds us that fashion is really not that serious. It’s about adorning yourself in something that transports you to a place, a feeling, or maybe even a version of yourself that you truly understand and love. This spring will offer us the opportunity to be bright, textured, and bold, and use these elements to hone personal style in an incredibly beautiful way. The greatest gift we can give our clients is to stay inspired and show them how they can use fashion to define who they are and how they want to feel. New York Fashion Week is the official start of the season for Watson Style Group, and we ride this wave of creativity while we make each outfit, pack for every trip, and support our clients in feeling unapologetically themselves.