Ankle-tagged 'Soho crook' shakes up New York fashion week with rooftop show

Anna Delvey, the infamous "Soho crook," wasn't going to miss New York Fashion Week because of an ankle bracelet and house arrest. So fashion came to her, or more precisely to the roof of her East Village apartment.

In what was deemed a start to the week of Half-hearted fashion designer, Elle Delvey was on a mission to shake things up by welcoming Shao, a young emerging designer, to a chaotic show under stormy skies whose organizers feared he would be arrested by the police before he even arrived. begins.

"So much fun... too much fun to describe", is how Delvey, 32 years old, of Russian origin, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, described it. It's hard to say where Delvey falls on the spectrum of accelerated fashion celebration, but Lady Gaga's stylist Nicola Formichetti said he thought Delvey was like the late British fashion icon Isabella Blow: “super passionate without much planning.”

“People are obsessed with Anna. It’s not like she’s a fashion figure or authority, but I like the fact that she’s using her position to promote and elevate a young designer,” he said. “Fashion is about promoting young designers and I feel like no one does that anymore.”

Delvey, 32, was arrested in 2017 and convicted guilty of attempted grand theft after posing as a wealthy German patron, spending more than $275,000 on private jets and luxury hotel stays. The Netflix series Inventing Anna, based on her story, aired while she was serving a prison sentence. She remains under house arrest for overstaying her visa.

Delvey and legendary New York publicist Kelly Cutrone conceived the rooftop show in a matter of days. Models included Native American Quannah Chasinghorse and Siberian Irina Pantaeva, 55, who came to New York in the 1990s to become a nanny but ended up working as a Chanel model. Chasinghorse said: "It was a good experience to do a fashion show on a roof and in the rain."

Against the backdrop of the New York skyline , the parade fittingly opened with Woke Up. This morning, the theme from The Sopranos and Hot in the City from Billy Idol. Models circled the stairwell in outfits that evoked the tailored, punky history of the East Village. But some models didn't make it to the roof, because there was so much chaos.

"It was a challenge," Delvey said. “I had about 30 people show up at my apartment. I suppose that’s the beauty of the job: how to work with constraints. I am bound to this one place. We cannot go anywhere, anytime. We had to work with it. »

“We called the show Danger Zone,” said Shao Yang, the designer. "It's old New York, fun and spontaneous, the 80s, with the culture, the inclusiveness, the diversity, everything."

Series stylist , Jules Wood, who worked at Vivienne Westwood Couture, now editor-in-chief of Reserved magazine, described the designs as Jean Paul Gaultier meets Blade Runner via refined couture. Wood said the show almost didn't happen. "Vivienne would have approved – a bit of a guerrilla with a fuck you attitude."

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Yet the crowds trying to get to Delvey's roof proved that his fame had not diminished. “She has an interesting perspective on the fashion industry and its exclusivity,” said the show's hairstylist, Jason Backe. "She's obviously an opportunist, but this is an opportunity for her to take advantage, like a good Samaritan."