This article documents what happened when Anna Delvey and Kelly Cutrone joined forces to host SHAO’s first ever NYFW show. An interview with the designer is coming later today.

Most young up-and-coming designers don’t cause the kind of stir that Shao Yang’s NYFW debut show has. But then again, most designers aren’t working alongside PR extraordinaire Kelly Cutrone and scammer icon Anna Delvey. 

When it was first announced last month that Cutrone and Delvey would join forces as part of a pop-up dubbed “The Outlaw Agency,” to host SHAO’s first ever show, the event the hottest ticket on the NYFW calendar.

But Yang isn’t exactly new here. She has run The Tailory, a bespoke clothing service, since 2014, creating custom suits by appointment. However, it was Cutrone, her publicist, who insisted it was time that Yang create her own namesake label and throw a party people won’t ever forget.

So last night, she did exactly that. On the anniversary of 9/11, with the glowing Twin Tower tribute visible on the pink-tinged skyline, the rain battered down and almost flooded the streets. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep an exclusive gaggle of one hundred or so New Yorkers from gathering in the East Village. At Delvey’s apartment while she’s on house arrest, no less. 

Some might think that NYFW is dead, but last night, with the show so poetically titled Danger Zone, Yang, Cutrone, and Delvey breathed new life into the season with a punk attitude and chaotic fanfare. It was the antithesis of the cookie-cutter shows the industry has become accustomed to. “I’m so bored with fashion,” Cutrone quipped to Dazed. So she broke all the rules… and maybe even some laws. Here’s what went down.

THE MODELS PULLED UP TO FIRST AVENUE ON A BUS

Neon lights, champagne, and a feverishly animated Cutrone helped bus down a slew of models who, due to the size of Delvey’s East Village apartment, had to have hair and make-up done at another location. The result was something of a guerilla street fashion exhibit on First Avenue, as attendees, passersby, and neighbours clamoured against each other in the rain to get their first glimpse of the models. Cutrone stepped outside the bus, introducing each model proudly. At one point, she even accepted a DeuxMoi shirt from someone manning the celebrity gossip account’s ice cream truck. Yes, DeuxMoi was selling soft serve and merch outside Delvey’s apartment. 

LESS THAN 100 PEOPLE ACTUALLY MADE IT ONTO THE GUESTLIST

However, not everyone was let into Delvey’s building. Fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman, sat in the front row, while close by was former RHONY star and Cutrone’s bestie, Leah McSweeney. Cutrone kept it old school, inviting just friends and the press – there was not one influencer in sight. 

The rain – which at this point had miraculously subsided – was wiped off the black, fold-out seats by someone wielding a roll of paper towel. People wondered out loud about seating assignments and what exactly they were supposed to do. But in the cramped space, which wasn’t built for more than 20 people to stand on, let alone all of New York’s fashion press, there wasn’t room for a catwalk, let alone niceties.

THE MODELS WORKED FOR THEIR PAYCHECK CLIMBING A FIVE-STOREY ‘RUNWAY’

Then the show began. As The Sopranos theme blared – a playful antic from Kelly – one by one, models strutted up the stairs and down the narrow path, across the questionably squishy floor to the flock of press, posing against misshapen brown, corrugated iron. What the show lacked in glitz and glamour, it made up for in energy and heart. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CLOTHES THEMSELVES?

The genderless collection featured swathes of denim, crossed vests, blazers with attached overlaid bustiers, cropped trousers, and impeccably tailored suits. Saturated with a punk insouciance, the clothing nodded to Yang’s love of the 80s and her Brooklyn roots, often very literally – once with a “Brooklyn” emblazoned hoodie – while modernising Western aesthetics with cross-stitched denim and shoulder-padded vests. 

Leather half-bust corsets cut through the intense masculinity of some trouser-and-shirt ensembles, while slinky shirt dresses fitted with bustiers satiated cravings for a feminine edge. Yang expertly modelled fluidity. She joyously toyed with the sharp silhouettes of a boyish military blazer by styling it with a flowing white skirt, and even modelled some asymmetric Victorian-era-esque half-bust skirts. 

The neutral palette of black, white and grey was occasionally cut through with pinstripe, scattered stars, and tangy bursts of neon. Slick, wearable, yet decidedly cool and unattainable – the collection bore all the signature characteristics of a decidedly New York uniform. 

DELVEY SERVED OUTLAW CHIC

Delvey, dressed in SHAO, wore a sleek black suit with bejewelled shoulders, a satin corset, and trousers with a wistful slit. And when the wind blew just right, out from the side of her pant hem poked out an ankle monitor a la Lindsay Lohan circa 2010. 

NO ONE WANTED TO LEAVE 

As far as most fashion shows go, the customary finale bow from the designer is everyone’s signal to get up and run for the exit. But this time, everyone lingered. Sure, it was partially because the only way out was single-file, down a set of unrelenting stairs. But the feeling in the air was electric. Yang, Delvey, and Cutrone posed for selfies, quipped about each other's idiosyncrasies – “Anna Delvey is addicted to Spindrift” Cutrone half-joked – while everyone else resisted leaving the precarious rooftop.

Eventually, the crowd sauntered downstairs to a neighbourhood Italian restaurant where the drinks and pizza flowed freely – a parting present from Cutrone. The bypassers and the paparazzi were long gone, and the only ones left gnawing at cold pie were the photographers, writers, bookers, and friends of. No one wanted the night to end.