Batsheva Hay took her spring 2025 New York Fashion Week show to the city’s streets, specifically Elizabeth Street, right outside her new boutique. And she cast her customers as models.
“I found a lot of them by searching who tagged my brand on Instagram, and reached out directly to them asking if they wanted to be in the show,” she said. “Two of them flew in from Los Angeles.”
The designer staged the show guerrilla-style, stopping traffic in spurts on Sunday afternoon so the models could step off the sidewalk in their finery.
“I brought it up at my community board meeting and they were like, you can’t throw a block party…it’s actually quite expensive,” Hay said. So she did it her way.
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The collection was full of prairie-chic cotton poplin dresses and check flannel blouses with button-up V necklines and puffy sleeves, and easy separates like taffeta ruched skirts, an oversized denim blazer and tank dress with front pockets and a flared skirt. She also introduced activewear, with leggings and stretchy tops that played off the decor of her shop, in prints based on the”animalish” hand-painted floor.
The looks are on the floor now, and the models carried numbered signs with QR codes that led would-be shoppers to them online. It was a fun scene and straight to the point, which is selling.
As Hay said, “I don’t need all the fluff.”