It is Tuesday morning as I write this and the first show is tonight at 7, so if you are reading this on the day, you still have time. I have been covering Runway 7 since about their 5th season and I remember when a hundred designers on their schedule sounded like a stretch. This season there are 138 of them, from 20 countries and territories, across 6 days at Sony Hall. You can check the full run of shows and book passes on the Runway 7 Platform, and I will come back to what is worth planning around, because you cannot see all of it and I would not try.
What Runway 7 Is If You Have Never Been
New York Fashion Week is not one thing. The big houses show wherever they like across the city on the official calendar, and separately there are production platforms that rent a venue for the week and run their own back to back program. Runway 7 is the largest of those, now in its 11th season, and the pitch has always been range: couture next to streetwear next to swim next to a children’s line, international labels that would never get a slot on the main calendar, and a fair amount of celebrity and cause driven programming in between. Some of it is brilliant and some of it is a designer’s first ever show and you can tell. That mix is the point. It is the one week in New York where a label from La Paz and a label from Orlando get the same lights and the same front row.
Where It Is And How To Get In
- The shows run from Tuesday 8 September through Sunday 13 September 2026, with the first Runway 7 Fashion Awards following on Monday 14 September.
- Everything is at Sony Hall, 235 West 46th Street, which is a basement venue under the Paramount Hotel, a couple of blocks off Times Square.
- Each day is split into time slots at 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, 5 pm, 7 pm and 9 pm, and each slot carries anywhere from 4 to 9 designers back to back.
- Passes are sold per slot or for the day and are bought through the Runway 7 platform, and the Awards night on the 14th is ticketed separately at runway7awards.com.
Buy by the slot, not the day. A full day at Sony Hall is 10 hours in a basement with no windows and I have done it and I do not recommend it. Pick 2 slots, eat between them, and come back.
Opening Night Is About Dogs, And Fern Mallis
Tuesday 8 September at 7 pm is CatWalk FurBaby, the 4th year Elysian Magazine has opened Runway 7 with a show for animal welfare, and this year it is themed Women Inspiring Women. Fern Mallis is the Lifetime Achievement honoree, which matters more than it might sound because Fern is the woman who built the tents at Bryant Park in the 1990s and turned New York Fashion Week into a single scheduled event in the first place. Nicole Miller and Marc Bouwer are in the room, Charlii Sebunya hosts, and the runway carries Victor de Souza, Anne Fontaine, Marc Bouwer Studio, D’Marsh Couture, Hot Girl Quilting, Any Old Iron and Magpies & Peacocks among others.
There will be dogs on the runway. There are always dogs on the runway at this one. Anthony Rubio then brings his canine couture back on Sunday afternoon, so if that is your reason for coming you have 2 chances.
The Shows I Would Plan Around, Day By Day
I am not going to list all 138. The full schedule is on the platform. These are the slots I have circled.
Wednesday 9 September
The 1 pm slot is HIV Unwrapped, a private presentation built with HIV researchers and emerging designers to take on stigma through clothing, and it is the one show this week I would call necessary rather than nice. The 9 pm slot has Renee’s Bridal and LC Couture if you are here for gowns.
Thursday 10 September
Thursday at 7 pm is the strangest booking of the week and I mean that as a compliment. Morgan & Morgan, the biggest personal injury law firm in America, is showing an avant garde collection about the experience of being injured. I have no idea what that looks like. Nobody I have asked does either. It shares the slot with CHICK New York’s 1980s ready to wear and Veritée Hill’s wearable art eveningwear, and then at 9 pm the Venezuelan couturier Alejandro de los Reyes does embellished pageant gowns, which after a law firm’s take on whiplash will feel like a palate cleanser.
Earlier that day, 11 am, Ashley Rae LTD is on, a size inclusive label from Ashley Lamb that builds pieces from reused fabric and quilt art, and 3 pm has Hilia Swim if you want swim without going to Miami for it.Friday 11 September
Friday night belongs to RR22 at 9 pm. It is the Rick Ross collaboration with Edition22, 20 looks of street luxury, vegan leather bags and travel pieces, and the release says Wingstop, who sponsor the week, have “surprises on the runway”, which with Rick Ross could mean anything. Bugatti is in the same slot with luggage and travel goods rather than clothes, and Rye Chasin does distressed denim and waxed cargo streetwear. Earlier, Momma Boss Swim at 3 pm is 30 looks of swim and resort from Samantha Veretto.
Saturday 12 September
Two things. At 1 pm Savvi Kids Couture stages a private 80 look children’s show led by Dr. Tiara Marsh, which is the largest single presentation of the week by look count. At 7 pm Project Lab Coat returns, the cabaret styled couture show for cancer awareness that has raised more than $200,000 so far for Mount Sinai, Global Lyme Alliance, Project Lyme and Lymelight Foundation. This year each lab coat stands for a different cancer, and a survivor from the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance walks. Runway 7’s own director Christina Kovacs has been through serious illness herself and this is her show in every sense. Bring tissues, I am not being funny.
The 9 pm Saturday slot is lingerie, Tutel and Delphi Rive, plus Ren Haixi’s zero waste couture.
Sunday 13 September
Anthony Rubio at 3 pm with the dogs, Archie Brown doing 2 separate shows at 3 and 5 (youth fashion, then eveningwear and transformation gowns), and then the finale.
Malan Breton Closes, And Then There Is An Awards Night
Malan Breton takes the 9 pm slot on Sunday to close the season, which is the right call. He dresses Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Janelle Monáe, Emma Thompson, Billy Porter, Kylie Minogue and Raye, and his finales are theatre, proper staged theatre, and Sony Hall with its low ceiling and cabaret tables is a better room for that than any tent.
Then on Monday 14 September at 7 pm Runway 7 holds its first ever Fashion Awards in the same room. Categories cover designers, creators, models, hair and makeup and media, with prizes for streetwear, womenswear, couture, sustainable, bridal, swim, accessories and Emerging Designer of the Year. Nominees include Simón Villalba, Jesse Lee, Paromita Ghosh, Amna Inam, Karen Chan, Andy Bachman, Carlos Alberto and Markos Pimentel, and Malan Breton appears again. Separate ticket, separate site.
Why This Season Is Bigger Than The Designer Count
The number I keep coming back to is 27. More than 27 brands from Latin America are showing at Runway 7 this season, from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Costa Rica, and Runway 7 is calling it the largest Latin American presence New York Fashion Week has had. Áurea Argentina, Patty Alarcon Lagos, Roberto Ramírez, Kelmit Pinango and Amaya Butrón are all in the schedule, and Linaje Atelier on Wednesday evening is one I have circled twice.
Diane Vara, who runs PR for Runway 7, put it as the week bringing the industry together around ideas bigger than the runway, and for once the press line is roughly true. A law firm, a chicken wing chain, a rapper, a cancer charity, a children’s line and a couturier who dresses Emma Thompson are sharing one basement stage for 6 days, and nothing on the official calendar across town is doing anything like it. Whether that is fashion week as it should be or fashion week as a trade show is an argument I have had with colleagues every September for 5 years now, and I still go, and I will be there tonight at 7 with the dogs.