Cathy Horyn Uses Light and Dark Language to reveal ‘Easy’ Aesthetic of NYFW

Photographed by Andres Kudacki

A New York magazine report on New York Fashion Week revealed the “easy” American aesthetic of the runway collections by balancing the use of warm, bright words with cold, dark words.

Renowned fashion critic Cathy Horyn’s report “American Fashion Confronts America” featured the above photo of supermodel Natasha Poly backstage at the Michael Kors show as the cover photo for “The Cut” section. Natasha embodied the duality Horyn observed in the collections and imbued in the article’s language. The gold, metallic leopard brocade of her dress “reflected” an “irresistible rich bitch” aura with slick “sun-bleached” hair. She grasped her metallic handbag with “tension.”

Natasha grasped the handbag as if she were squeezing the life’s blood from it. It’s a perfect pose of strength to go with the title “American Fashion Confronts America.” Her power pose evoked the violent side of Horyn’s language connecting to the words “colliding, tension, forceful, coldly, killer and hellholes. Yet the liquidity of her somewhat wet hair and wrap dress exuded ease.

Read these full sentences that use some of the above words and prepare for the profound.

“Simons exposed the enormous opportunity for fashion to begin reflecting the tensions and hopes colliding on the American stage.”

“It was haunting and expansive too—like movies that depict sun-bleached hellholes on the Fourth of July.”