NYFW: TRESemmé is Heading Back to the Basics
New York Fashion Week can be a daunting event to participate in. If you’re not spending hundreds of dollars to watch a show, you’re watching influencers and celebrities cut lines to be escorted to their VIP seats. There seems to be no easy way into this world–unless you’re a model, photographer, designer, or an influencer with at least 10,000 followers.
Being a normal, non-famous person in New York City is strange enough. During fashion week, it’s almost embarrassing.
TRESemmé, however, is trying to bring normalcy back into the fashion world this year. As the official hair care sponsor of NYFW since 2006, TRESemmé has been involved in over 75 shows in New York and 28 global shows. This year, they’ve launched a new experience that anyone can attend: the TRESemmé Style Studio.
Once you sign up for a free thirty-minute appointment online, make the trek to Tribeca and find yourself outside Spring Studios on Varick Street, where photographers are waiting outside, men in suits are manning the doors, and people are dressed like they’re about to walk the runway themselves.
And they just might be. Because this is where everything is happening. Spring Studios is the main headquarters for runway shows throughout the city. Designers like Tiffany Brown, Pamella Roland, Son Jung Wan, and Bishe Cromartie are having showcases upstairs. And most of these shows are invite only–completely closed off to the public, no matter how much money you have.
But downstairs, just a few floors below these runways, TRESemmé is hosting the “lobby experience,” an opportunity for anyone to mingle with the fashion world, while also trying out TRESemmé products.
TRESemmé is a brand almost everyone knows and can afford. Having picked up a product of theirs several times at the closest drug store–out of desperation and convenience–stepping into this lobby almost feels like home.
Rob Morean, the event manager, stands in front of a TRESemmé hairspray bottle-lined wall. Morean and the other workers are there to promote products, but also make those with no ties to the fashion industry feel a bit special.
“This is an opportunity for people to get back to the basics,” Morean says. He compares the world of influence, fashion, and beauty to a “blackhole” – something you can quickly lose yourself in. TRESemmé is pushing the focus onto individuality instead.
In one corner of the lobby is a DIY touch-up salon with mirrors and products available to use. In another corner, hairstylists are on standby, ready to give your hair a makeover.
Towards the front are couches to sit and watch live streams of the shows upstairs. You can help yourself to a flavored CORE Water from one of the mini fridges, grab a coffee, and be handed a free bag of chocolate-covered almonds from the Skinny-Dipped and Blank Street cart.
The best part of the lobby is the makeshift runway in teh center, lined with ceiling-to-floor gold strings. Here, you can “strut” to TRESemmé’s theme song “Ooh La La” (remixed by Becky G) with the help of videographers hyping you up. A line forms at one point, and people take turns walking solo or with a friend, living out their life-long secret modeling dreams.
Sophie Silnicki sits alone on the couches by the live stream, and at first glance, she seems like an ordinary, average girl. Someone who may be here just because they love TRESemmé. Turns out she’s a well-known NYC dancer. And a former Rockette. “My ballet friends invited me,” she says. “I normally don’t go to fashion week events.”
Although this event is for anyone, it seems almost everyone here has something to do with fashion week. It’s a room for photographers to take a break and ditch their heavy equipment in a corner. Assistants to grab coffee and water. Invitees to have their photo taken with whichever brand wanted them here.
Nigel Garcia, who has just gotten her hair done by one of the TRESemmé stylists (a twin bun slick back), looks like she should be upstairs on a runway. But she clarifies–she’s not a model. TRESemmé invited her to make content for the event. “And I mean, it’s New York Fashion week, so why not?” she says.
Garcia has around 4,000 followers on Instagram and has labeled herself a digital creator and producer. Her posts contain her posing at NYC events, street style Tik Tok videos, and photos that look like they belong in magazines. Originally from the Philippines, Garcia is currently a student at Parsons School of Design. She tells me she’s here to establish connections with people from the fashion world.
Later, as I’m about to leave, I watch Garcia pose with a CORE water bottle in front of one of the mini fridges full of them. The photographer asks me to move out of the way so he can take her photo.
