The NYFW of a V Magazine digital editor
New York Fashion Week is in full swing, but I don't need to tell you that as fashion lovers. I love seeing street style photos on Instagram and watching recaps of the shows on my laptop. The pictures on my screen all look so glam, but I wondered what NYFW looks like for the people who are right in the middle of it. So I went to ask an editor for whom attending shows is part of his job description.
I met Abe a few weeks ago when I became BFFs with Gigi Hadid and Michael Kors. It was his last day as a digital editor at L’Officiel USA and he would start the next day as a digital editor at V Magazine. Abraham ‘Abe’ Martinez is 25 years young and already has a resume that would impress the average fashion journalist. I find that impressive, but he sees himself as old in the fashion magazine world.
On Friday afternoon, Fashion Week day one, I meet Abe at the V Magazine office in the middle of the Lower East Side. He has shoulder-length hair and wears black from top to knee-high socks. He calls his style ‘high-low vintage.’ ‘I combine designer accessories with Uniqlo jeans and vintage T-shirts.’
He has already had to cancel two events because it is so busy at the office. ‘I can't go from here to Brooklyn for a presentation, then drive to midtown for a show. I have work to do,’ he tells me.
His inbox is overflowing with invitations that he has to stick into a calendar to create some sort of overview in the chaos. ‘That's the less glamorous work that no one talks about,’ he says.
After our short meeting, he changes clothes and gets into a car with his team on the way to the Tomo Koizumi show, to go directly to the Jeremy Scott show afterwards.
Saturday morning, NYFW day two, I receive a text from him at 5:55 AM with his schedule for the rest of the week. I could take six screenshots of it, it's that long.
The first thing I ask when I see him again that afternoon is: ‘Were you really awake that early?’ ‘Still awake,’ he replies. ‘After shows, I'm often so full of adrenaline that I can't sleep.’ He wanted to use that energy productively by sending a stack of emails and editing articles. At the moment, it seemed like a smart idea, but when he went to his first show of the day (Khaite) on Saturday morning with two hours of sleep, he was less enthusiastic about his nighttime decisions. A short nap between Khaite and Christopher John Rogers did him good, thankfully.
People who are in New York specifically for Fashion Week have, according to Abe, a completely different experience than he does. ‘They go to nice restaurants for a long lunch between shows. For me, the regular work life just continues, so I go from show to office to show.’
We take a taxi to The Roxy Hotel, where Abe has an appointment with an up-and-coming talent in the men's modeling world to talk about a potential collaboration. The model is very young and has his mother with him to help him stay organized from A to B. Before the appointment, we sit at a table in the impressive lobby chatting about the fashion world, his career, the magazine industry, and, of course, NYFW. His goal in life is to always keep developing creatively. And Fashion Week? Although he still finds it a nice principle to come together to admire clothing and appreciate the work that goes into a show, he takes it a lot less seriously nowadays than in the past.
‘The first time I went as an employee of a magazine, I was so nervous and scared. I was invited to very few shows and was freaking out about being on time everywhere. If a show was supposed to start at seven, I would be ready by ten to seven. But most shows start at least half an hour late, so I have sat reading a book surrounded by empty chairs.’
This afternoon, the R13 show was on the schedule, but he skips it. ‘Our fashion editor is sitting front row, I'm sitting in the third row. So he’s making a video because if I made one, it would look like an illegally downloaded movie. You know, with people walking through the shot all the time.’
We walk past Spring Studios – the epicenter of NYFW – where it’s teeming with people in purple-yellow poofy dresses and floral suits, back to the V Magazine office. Abe needs to change clothes before heading to a dinner at Ten Corso Como and a Swarovski afterparty. After he just spent hours convincing me that Fashion Week is just work, he happily realizes that it is just as glam as it sounds.
Written by: Anna van der Heijden
