New York Fashion Week in September 2001 was supposed to be the biggest one yet. Instead, on a bright, clear Tuesday morning, the world changed forever. Twenty years after 9/11, the industry remembers.
“September 11 was the fifth day of Fashion Week, and I purposely was a little late getting down to Bryant Park [in Midtown] that morning. CNN was covering backstage at the shows. Working at the tents, I never got the chance to catch any of it. So I was watching the 9:00 a.m. Liz Lange Maternity show on TV when there was a news flash saying that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I raced out of my apartment on the Upper East Side to grab a cab, and when I got to Park Avenue you could see smoke filling the air downtown,” said Fern Mallis.