The Night Nicki Minaj Found Fashion in Basketball: NYFW Reviews of Monse and Chromat

Early Friday evening on the west side of 31st Street in the tower of the Eugene apartments, well heeled ladies and gentlemen walked through a small gym, past the stationary bikes, and into a private basketball court.

Fashion editors, celebrities and Minnie Mouse milled around the court as people filed in to see Monse’s Spring 2018 collection by design duo Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia.

In-the-know guests paid homage to Minnie and wore polka dots dresses and pantsuits, black and white asymmetrical striped shirts and red. Paris and Nicky Hilton posed for photos with Minnie and sat down near Sofia Richie and Kate Bosworth.  

Leandra Medine, who founded the Man Repeller website, ran in a little late and sat next to Eva Chen, director of fashion partnerships at Instagram, and fashion blogger Bryanboy in the front row and waited for the show to begin, and waited and waited.

About 45 minutes after the show was supposed to start Nicki Minaj sashayed into the basketball court and took her seat at center front row, and then the show began.

Set to the music of Lana Del Rey’s “God Bless America -- And All The Beautiful Women In It,” the collection’s patriotic and nostalgic collegiate sports theme was complimented by the song lyrics “Take me as I am, take me in stride… you let me in, don’t leave me out.” SARAH SHEARS

Chromat designer Becca McCharen-Tran has been shaking up the fashion industry from the moment she abandoned her career in architecture seven years ago and started designing swimsuits and bondage-wear.

Not only was she one of the first designers to feature wearable tech in her collections, she was among the first to champion a spectrum of race, gender, size, and age in her runway shows.

Each year has seen Chromat further challenge industry mores and go where other designers aren’t quite willing to go.

Last season, for instance, many designers participated in a collective resistance rallying cry or made political references in their shows. But none did so as overtly and passionately as Chromat, whose show ended with Tt the Artist rapping “Fuck Donald Trump.”

If progressive politics are part of Chromat’s DNA, fashion-forward swimsuits are the brand’s moneymaking staple.

This season’s show opened with an indigo green two-piece--underboob-revealing tee and g-string bikini bottoms--that encapsulates the kind of edgy but wearable designs we’ve come to expect from Chromat. Likewise the beautiful black model who clapped her butt cheeks for the cameras.

The rest of the suits and models came down the runway in an impressively diverse variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, while a woman in the DJ booth sang Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman” deliberately off-key--yet somehow pitch perfect. LIZZIE CROCKER