The Beat Mom Takes NYFW (A First-Timers Fashion Week Diary)
There is New York City, and then there is New York City during Fashion Week. For a few days, the sidewalks seem to become extensions of the runway. Hotel lobbies fill with editors, creators, stylists, designers, photographers, and people wearing outfits fabulous enough to make you wonder where exactly they're going. Cameras appear on street corners. Invitations are being checked at doors. Cars are pulling up. Heels are clicking down sidewalks. And everywhere you look, someone is creating a moment.
Experiencing New York Fashion Week for the first time as the founder of The Beat Mom Magazine felt exciting, slightly intimidating, incredibly inspiring, and at times completely surreal.
Of course, before there were shows, activations, or photos, there were the outfits. Fashion Week has a way of making you rethink everything hanging in your closet. Suddenly, the dress that felt dramatic at home doesn't feel dramatic enough in Manhattan. This is one of the few places where wearing sequins before dinner makes perfect sense, an oversized pair of sunglasses feels practically mandatory, and getting dressed becomes part of the event itself.
One of my favorite looks of the week was for a show with a champagne dress code. I ultimately leaned into a gold sequin look, choosing to interpret the theme through my own personal style rather than taking it too literally. That decision ended up representing one of my biggest takeaways from Fashion Week: the most memorable style isn't necessarily the outfit that follows every trend. It's the outfit that tells you something about the person wearing it.
Then came the shows.
Watching a runway online simply doesn't compare to sitting in the room. There is a moment just before the first model walks when the lights change, the music begins, conversations stop, and suddenly everyone is looking in the same direction. You notice the movement of the clothes, the styling, the accessories, the beauty choices, and tiny details that a photograph can never fully capture. Even when you wouldn't wear an entire runway look exactly as presented, there is always something to take away from it — a color combination, a silhouette, a layering idea, or simply permission to try something different.
But surprisingly, some of my favorite Fashion Week experiences happened outside the runway shows. Beauty activations, pop-ups, shopping, meeting other creators, photographing looks around the city, and simply watching New York transform into one enormous fashion playground became equally memorable parts of the trip. Fashion Week is much bigger than a calendar of shows. It is an ecosystem of creativity happening in restaurants, boutiques, hotel elevators, sidewalks, parties, and conversations between people who simply love this industry.
There is also another side to attending Fashion Week for the first time: comparison. It is easy to enter a room and immediately begin wondering whether you belong there. Someone has more followers. Someone knows the publicist. Someone has a better seat. Someone is wearing the designer everyone recognizes. Someone seems to know exactly where they're supposed to stand while you're still figuring out which entrance you're supposed to use.
And then you realize something important.
You don't have to become someone else to deserve to be in the room. I wasn't attending Fashion Week pretending to be a lifelong fashion insider. I was there as a woman, a mother, a creator, an editor, and the founder of a publication created to remind women that motherhood and personal identity don't have to exist separately. That perspective belonged in the room, too.
By the time I left New York, I had plenty of photos, videos, fashion inspiration, and stories to bring home. But the thing I valued most wasn't something I could post.
It was the reminder that sometimes you have to enter spaces before you feel completely ready for them.
Would I go back to Fashion Week?
Without hesitation.
Would I pack fewer shoes next time?
That remains to be seen.
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