Washington Post: Style secrets as New York Fashion Week insiders reveal thrifty fashion hacks they really wear

If you only consumed New York Fashion Week through street-style slideshows and high-gloss photos of star-studded front rows, you could be forgiven for understanding the whole thing to be a celebration of material wealth.

It’s true that New York Fashion Week brings people styled to the hilt in luxury goods together to gaze at additional luxury goods. And it’s true that if the camera flashes from the paparazzi gathered outside each show don’t make your eyes water, thinking about the combined MSRPs of the handbags lined up just inside the door will.

As a result, dressing to attend it can be a daunting assignment: Liz Teich, a stylist based in New York, has been working at the event in various capacities since she was an 18-year-old intern - and remembers vividly how much pressure she felt to look lavish and fit in. Ms Teich once worked at an event attended by a famed designer who commented on how similar her own outfit and Ms Teich’s were. “I wanted to crawl under the table knowing mine was probably from H&M,” she says.

Spend enough time on the ground at Fashion Week, though, and inevitably you learn that some of those handbags are rentals or secondhand consignments, and that many of the clothes worn by guests are gifts or loans from the label - and that more do come from places like H&M than initially meets the eye. You learn that we all, in other words, head straight for the clearance rack on occasion. That we all appreciate a dirt-cheap piece that turns out to be an MVP.

Via phone, email and in-person interviews, New York fashion insiders revealed the hyper-affordable pieces they secretly — or proudly — wear to Fashion Week.

Gun-range glasses and Gap Kids tees

Fashion columnist and Fashionista founder Faran Krentcil grew up going to the gun club with her dad, an army veteran, in rural Massachusetts. “We had these yellow protective goggles from Walmart when we did target practice, $US6 ($9) per pair,” Ms Krentcil says. “I took mine to Paris Fashion Week and got stopped by influencers outside the Chanel show. Were they Gucci? No. Backwoods Walmart with my dad.”

Ms Krentcil also frequently reaches for a washable, versatile mall fave: plain white tees from Gap Kids, size XL. “They fit perfectly under a vintage Stella McCartney blazer or with a Prada drop-waist skirt,” she says. When they go on sale during back-to-school season, Ms Krentcil buys them in bulk.

Classic Gap khakis

PC Chandra, an industry veteran, revealed to The Post that his best outfits routinely include slim-cut khakis from the Gap. “Most coats that look good for my body type can cost $US1000. Most sweaters - and I’m loyal to a Ralph Lauren cable knit cashmere — cost $US500,” says Mr Chandra, who’s worked in strategy and operations for Ralph Lauren and Diane Von Furstenberg. “If I can get a nice pair of pants for under $US50, why not?”

On Tuesday morning, the sixth and final day of fashion festivities, Mr Chandra was dismayed to discover his khakis weren’t zipping.

“I may have indulged in too many slices of Victoria sponge cake at the Tanner Fletcher after-party,” he muses. (An occupational hazard for anyone at Fashion Week, quite frankly.) Once again, Gap to the rescue, this time in the form of a pair of camo-print joggers.

Secondhand suits

Willa Bennett, editor in chief of Seventeen and Cosmopolitan magazines, is known for her chic taste in suits and blazers. Many of her favorite Fashion Week looks, though, have been bargain finds from Depop and eBay.

“There’s something really special about wearing a one-of-a-kind piece that nobody else has, and I love the high-low mix of pairing a $US50 vintage blazer with a high-end contemporary designer,” Ms Bennett says. “One of my favorite NYFW outfits included a vintage Gucci suit and a Sandy Liang top.”

Cheap lip balm and a hat from a Russian street vendor

Beauty expert Deena Campbell knows her luxury makeup products. But for Fashion Week, she swears by Vaseline’s $US7 Cocoa Shimmer balm as her go-to lip colour. It goes with everything, Ms Campbell says, and “makes me feel put together. Never overdone.”

Ms Campbell found her best low-budget sartorial triumph at a street market in St Petersburg in 2012: a tall, furry hat with ear flaps that makes an appearance at almost every February Fashion Week. “People always assume it’s some luxe, high-ticket piece,” she says. When she tells them its surprising provenance, “everyone’s face is just like, ‘What?!’ Like, ‘Details!’”

An all-purpose J. Crew dress

Fashion consultant Julie Gilhart’s tried-and-true Fashion Week trick is a silky drawstring-waist dress from J. Crew. “I wear it under everything, even my most luxury pieces. One of my favorite pairings is with a Nina Ricci jacket designed by Peter Copping, and I always get a million compliments,” Ms Gilhart says.

When the hem of her beloved dress got caught in her bike chain recently, Ms Gilhart had a tailor shorten it so it could stay in her rotation. “I’m pretty sure the alteration cost as much as the dress itself.”

An H&M trench coat

“At my first Fashion Week ever, I wore an H&M trench coat,” remembers Jonathan Van Ness of Netflix’s Queer Eye. It was 2018, the same year the hairstyling maestro made their debut on the show, and “the pants I wore were these black H&M pants that I had for beauty school — from, like, 2009,” they add.

“I felt really cute,” Van Ness adds. Still, sitting front row at a Lapointe show Saturday, in a magenta ensemble the brand had fitted and styled for them, Van Ness chuckles: “Look how far we’ve come.”

An insulated freezer-bag-turned-purse

If you have clicked through a slideshow of Fashion Week’s best street style any time in the last decade, chances are you have seen freelance fashion writer Laura Neilson. One of her most memorable, and most photographed, low-budget style flexes consisted of a freezer bag sent by a PR company.

“I held onto the bag because I thought, ‘This will be a really cool thing to give a gift in, or to package something else in,’ and I threw it in a drawer,” Ms Neilson says. During a particularly chilly Fashion Week in 2022, Ms Neilson suddenly needed a carryall that wouldn’t interfere with the sleeve of her winter puffer coat. “So I just thought, okay. It’s big enough to hold my notebook, a little protein bar, my phone,” she says with a laugh. “It was just a great counterpoint to everything else I was wearing. It was that one last piece.”

A childhood best friend’s sister’s T-shirt

Growing up, swimwear designer and software engineer Patricia Torvalds “wildly admired” her best friend’s older sister, who owned an American Eagle tee that read “Goats really like to nibble” in orange fuzzy letters.

“Which in sixth grade felt deeply incongruous, mysterious, and perhaps a bit salacious in a way I knew I couldn’t understand but hoped to,” Ms Torvalds says. She quickly became obsessed by it.

Years later, Ms Torvalds says, her best friend unearthed the shirt and gave it to her as a gift.

“It’s perfectly worn in, paper-thin,” she says, “and just as impenetrable in its phrasing as it was 20 years ago.”

Tees and pants from Uniqlo

At one of his first fashion weeks, Glamour shopping editor Jake Henry Smith learned one of the event’s great paradoxes: darting around the city from show to show can be a sweaty undertaking, and you wind up wearing your nicest clothes to do tasks that are pretty hard on your clothes. Mr Smith stopped at a Uniqlo, bought a new T-shirt to pair with his Dauan Jacari spiral skirt and loafers and was on his way. “I got away with it,” he laughs.

Since then, the thrifty Japanese brand has become a go-to for Mr Smith. “My holy grail is, they make really amazing tailored pants, with a nice pressed crease down the front,” he says. “I’ve gotten so many compliments on these pants that cost, like, 50 bucks.”

Souvenir statement necklaces

“I’m Caribbean. So anything that has like, yellow, black, red … any nods to my Jamaican heritage, I love,” says Robyn Mowatt, a freelance fashion editor. When Ms Mowatt purchased a long, beaded necklace with what she describes as “a talisman vibe” at a vendor stall at the Essence Festival last year, it quickly became a favourite accent piece.

“I ended up spending under $50 on this necklace,” she says, but it’s a meaningful way of “elevating Caribbean and African inspired pieces, normalising wearing them at any moment.”

A no-name LBD

For Kimberly Carney, the CEO of the shopping app FashWire, the true Fashion Week MVP is the humble little black dress.

“Dress it up with movie-star accessories, like a fantastic pair of bold shoes in a bright colour or with large embellishments. One note of extremism in an outfit is all it takes for all eyes to be on that one remarkable feature of your look,” Ms Carney says. “An affordable dress does not mean craftsmanship has to be sacrificed, and finding one that’s been designed and sewn well can make it look like you spent a lot more than you did.”

Hem tape and cheap hair gel

Even people who really are decked out for a fashion show courtesy of the brand often have to rummage through their bag of thrifty tricks to make their outfits work. Ms Teich, for example, nowadays usually gets to attend fashion shows in clothes loaned to her by the designer, but they aren’t always tailored for her. She frequently uses iron-on hem tape, available for roughly two bucks at any Walmart or Michaels, as a quick fix to keep long pants from dragging.

Clara Perlmutter (known on Instagram and TikTok as @tinyjewishgirl), a full-time content creator, often attends multiple events per day in which she is expected to wear an outfit chosen for her by the brand that is hosting. “If I’m changing, I’m probably going home, and it’s going to be a great undertaking,” Ms Perlmutter says. Ms Perlmutter needs her hair to survive the many transitions. So most days, she opts for a superslick bun or ponytail, secured with Got2B’s $7 Ultra Glued gel.

“I call it the shellac,” she says, because as soon as you glop it on, “you’re just, like, in there.”

Vintage soccer jerseys and Abercrombie & Fitch pants

One of stylist and consultant Sara Klausing’s Fashion Week secret weapons is a widely available, wildly popular pair of mall-brand slacks that can easily survive hours spent in a grimy subway seat.

The $US90-ish Sloane pants “wash beautifully,” Ms Klausing says, “and a Real Housewife once flipped out when she complimented the pants and discovered where they were from”.

Ms Klausing also loves incorporating vintage athletic jerseys from eBay into her otherwise dressy ensembles, which helps her avoid getting swept up in the sometimes self-important extravagance of Fashion Week.

“It’s almost like a reminder,” she says, “that it’s not that serious”.

© 2025 , The Washington Post