Having now experienced both a February and September NYFW, Delaney Rowe can say for certain she prefers the midwinter fashion week.
“It was cold and you’re not just sweating out your hangover. That’s really what fashion week is about, is drinking,” she says. “At the Staud show, they had trays of Champagne and when it would come out, people were just ripping the Champagne off the tray.”
If you don’t know Delaney Rowe’s name, you most certainly know her face from your feed, doing any number of impressions that have made her a TikTok sensation. Based in L.A., Rowe headed to New York this week to take in the fashion action, hitting the Kate Spade presentation, the Staud show, Prabal Gurung, the Helmut Lang party and, the morning WWD meets her in her room at the Bowery Hotel, the Altuzarra show.
Close friend and Echo Park neighbor Rainey Qualley has joined Rowe in her room and has been tasked with the playlist (it helps that Qualley is herself a musician). Altuzarra has sent over a blush pink knit skirt, cropped camisole and shrug set, and Rowe is in her Bowery bathroom, doing her own hair and makeup while she and Qualley have mimosas.
Rowe’s impressions include a Hollywood star doing a behind the scenes video on a magazine shoot, a character she’s dubbed “absolutely insufferable female lead of an indie movie” in various scenes and “girl who’s convinced you’re absolutely obsessed with her.”
Throughout the week, she’s had her share of people at parties or shows come up to her to remark on their favorite video of hers.
“People do this thing and they’re like, ‘what’s that video of yours that I love?’” she says. “I just am trying so desperately hard to make people think I’m not how I am in the videos – and I’m probably going too far the other way. I try to be down to earth and not annoying and I think I’m probably annoying.”
Her interest in fashion is relatively new, she says, but the initial appeal of coming to fashion week began simply with the chance to spend time in New York.
Ryan Williams/WWD
“I think fashion for me is not something I’ve always prioritized and now that’s a new thing that I’m getting into and learning about designers and things like that. That’s a very later in life thing for me,” she says. “So it really was the appeal of coming to New York and then you get here and then you realize it is so fun and everything is so beautiful. The shows are great, but I think what’s so fun is the dinners and then the little cocktail hours when you actually get to talk to people and meet people and people are like, ‘oh, I’ve followed you and I like your stuff.’ And that element of it is definitely the best part.”
She’s even managed to find some inspiration for future video concepts while out in New York – though, she says while laughing, it was her own response to someone that made her cringe.
“I got it from some really embarrassing thing I was doing, which was I was at a meeting, there were 15 people in the meeting, and each time somebody would come up to me, they’d do a handshake and I would just hug them and I would say, ‘I’m a hugger,’” she says. “Like shut up with that! The person who says ‘I’m a hugger’ is definitely for my next video.”
