We went to New York Fashion Week

Hey everyone! I'm Grant, an LA based artist and long time friend of GSS. Welcome to the start of a new blog series for the website that will be published in addition to the Love Letter every week. Get Some Sleep is so special to me, and I'm excited to share the brand's past, present, and future evolution with all of you here. We'll be going through the daily minutia and interesting projects that happen every day in the operation of the brand. This week I'll be walking you all through a convoluted but incredibly fun trip we all took to NYC for fashion week. 

New York fashion week represents to many, the zeitgeist of contemporary fashion. For me, it’s always felt like a pinnacle of what design presently has to offer. I’m going to speak to my experience as a first time attendee with this post, and also breath some life into the ridiculous odyssey we completed to get there. In the true nature of an odyssey, I aim to paint you a complete cast of characters, all of whom hold a deep history with the brand.

Cue 8AM on September 7th. Daniel and I met at the GSS warehouse to embark on the first leg of an over 24 hour trip to rural Pennsylvania. I think it’s important to highlight how ridiculous this travel plan was. Beginning in Anaheim California, the plan was to fly out from Los Angeles. Following our first flight to Atlanta, we had a layover in Newark, New Jersey.

On arrival at midnight, we exited and reentered the airport from baggage claim only to find it closed. Neither of us had any idea that airports ever closed at all but there we sat, staring at empty service desks until the early hours of the morning.

From there, a quick 9AM flight to Pittsburgh, then a 2 hour drive to the countryside. Then two days later— a 3AM trip back to the city and a flight out of Pittsburgh at 8AM to rendezvous with more friends in NYC. It was a lot.

This sounds needlessly complicated, but factoring in our overnight layover in New Jersey, it became even more unmanageable. However, this was the only way to ensure we attended our dear friends’ Alex and Emmalee’s wedding in Pennsylvania a mere day before touching down for fashion week.

A big part of my intention with this blog is to dive into the nuances and characters that make up GSS. To me, this community has become a certain catalyst for many of the best friendships and most important people in my life. I know this is true of many others who also call GSS their family. Yet even beyond this, all of the people I want to introduce you to here are phenomenal artists, creatives, and individuals, all with a special history with the brand. Alex and Emmalee are two of those people.

They run a brand called Alex’s Stupid Studio out of their adorable apartment in Pittsburgh. Daniel and I visited them together for the first time back in 2021, and they also hold a long history with the brand. The two of them have the most dynamic studio you’ll ever find in an apartment. It’s built to be functional, beautiful, and to give every component a home. I wish it was possible to directly immerse you in the harmony of machinery, supplies, and workspaces they’ve created in their home. The second best thing is the studio tour they’ve created on their website which you can find here. Each piece of clothing they create is truly unique and a testament to the creative process. There is nothing else like this in the artistic world. Here are some pictures of the first GSS x ASS collab from back in 2018:

 It cannot be overstated how important it was to be there for our friends on the day of their wedding, and that is why this trip necessarily became ever so complicated.

After a beautiful time at the ceremony, Daniel and I drove to the airport in the dead of night through a treacherous blanket of fog. The driving conditions were terrible, the atmosphere terrifying. Already sleep deprived, we rolled into the Pittsburgh airport and I watched, dazed, as Daniel ate egg pizza at 7AM. (Egg pizza???)

Following 5 flights in 3 days we landed at Newark airport and met up with our friend Nic (Young Chicken Pox).

He is another integral character to the GSS story. Nic is a longtime collaborator and friend of ours who creates beautiful 1/1 garments by hand. Here I’ll showcase some of my favorite pieces he’s created in collaboration with GSS, all of which will be featured in the GSS x YCP popup on Saturday 10/7 in LA:

The three of us spent a day roaming around New York, all delirious and running on cold brew and minutes of sleep. Exploring through the rain, we stumbled into ‘The New Museum’, which perhaps went over all of our heads.

Dylan, another GSS team member, met up with us for the fashion shows. So too did Meg, who you may know as one of our Discord admins. I’ll discuss them more in future posts so you can get to know each part of our team!

The atmosphere at fashion shows is something unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The room is filled with a strange cast of people, all of whom you cannot help but wonder at their career. Attendees outfits range from odd, to fantastically interesting, to business casual. There is a strange excitement in the air and an anticipation of whats to come.

When you go to a movie theatre, you already have some idea of what you’re about to see. When you watch a play, you’ve got the title running in your head at bare minimum. When you attend fashion shows, even if you’ve heard of the designer, you have no idea whats about to walk down that runway.

These shows have a certain air of mystery with every look. Each model a designer sends down might have a completely different aspect of the creator’s intention. 

The crowd’s reactions are everything. Some people are nodding their heads in surprise— others are glued to the models, dragging their eyes down the runway. Sometimes people lose interest after the first look. The beautiful thing is how everyone’s reaction is different. There is no show that will please everyone, nor a show that everyone will detest. This quality is what I found myself most surprised at. There is no omniscient fashion week authority, dubbing a show to be profound or terrible at random. There are just a crowd of wildly dressed onlookers from an extremely varied array of professional backgrounds, all deciding what resonates with them.

This gives me a lot of faith in fashion as not just an industry, but as an art form. The shows I found boring were loved by Daniel, Dylan, Nic, or Meg. Whereas the one I found most fantastical, others could hardly recall.

The rest of our time in New York was spent with friends, laughing, eating overpriced food, catching colds, and sleeping little to none before another long haul back to LA.

If you made it this far, here’s a special announcement: The purpose of this trip was something of a scouting operation— an effort to prep Get Some Sleep’s 2024 February New York Fashion week debut. We’re excited to share more details with you all as they come up! :)

Comment on this post with a poem you've written- I'll choose one or two to feature on next week's newsletter! (Entries will not be used in any GSS products.)

Thanks for reading!

-Grant GSS 2023