Photo Story By Colin Bedell & NiQyirah Rajhi

Twice a year, fashionistas color Manhattan streets and gather around the runways of New York City’s Fashion Week. Held primarily in Damrosch Park of Lincoln Center and other venues throughout the boroughs, NYFW debuts the final product of almost 100 fashion designers’ countless hours of devotion and their flair for garment construction. The NYFW audiences consist of the general public, fashion buyers, celebrities and fashion editors. NYFW is the first of four international fashion weeks, followed immediately by Paris, London and Milan.

The inaugural New York Fashion Week was in 1943 and was the world’s first organized fashion week. It was hosted as a means of distraction from French fashion during WWII, as fashion professionals were unable to travel to Paris to see the French fashion shows.

Not only is NYFW the way that fashion commentators report on trends and clue readers of fashion publications into what is “in” for the upcoming seasons, it is also the perfect setting for shooting street style. With the same level of attention they pay to the NYFW runways, photographers, bloggers, writers and stylists people watch throughout NYFW in the hope of understanding both the present and future landscape of fashion.