This season, Fashion Week has collided head-on with the Jewish High Holidays. Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown this evening and ends on sundown on Friday, while Fashion Week officially begins tomorrow and Fashion’s Night Out occurs on Friday night. This will naturally keep many Jewish editors from shows and parties, especially events taking place on Thursday. While Jewish designers like Max Azria and Yigal Azrouël moved their shows from their usual Thursday time slots to avoid conflicting with the High Holidays, other designers are stuck with it. Even if they’re not Jewish, this is problematic because they face embarrassing holes in their audiences, where observant Jewish fashion people won’t be sitting. Christian Siriano is just one designer in this predicament, and he’s not taking it lightly.
Mr. Siriano, who is not Jewish, said he “was freaking out” when he learned he was scheduled on Rosh Hashana. “I thought, ‘This will be horrible,’ ” he said. “Who will come?”
Siriano considered moving his show to a day that wasn’t so important to the Jews, and found his only other option was to show at the same time as Proenza Schouler, one of the biggest and coolest shows of New York Fashion Week. So, he had to make a decision about which would be the greater threat to his Fashion Week success: Proenza or the Jews? Ultimately, he decided it was Proenza Schouler, and will show tomorrow.
