Zac Posen, a boy from New York

I wish fast fashion didn’t exist (but it does). I wish Karl Lagarfeld had left us printed notes on fashion (but he couldn’t). And I wish Zac Posen wasn’t closing his eponymous label. But he is. And the one thing common in between life and style is that you can’t predict what stays and what goes.

Zachary Posen – a young designer who grew up in the eighties in New York, part of the cultural hotmix, nurtured by his artistic family, governed by his urge to fashion costumes out of even garbage.

Sounds like the story of many, yes? Replace the names, change the timelines, alter the style eras. You millennials can even add in his social media address.

This young designer even went to the renegade-hood of London where the icons he follows grew up; McQueen, Galliano… the icons for many, yes?

And then, one day, fashion’s daring muse Naomi Campbell gave him her seal (and steel) of approval, in outfits and in friendship. Sounds like the story of very few, yes?

And seasons snowballed into success when he earned his way into fashion editorials and buyers and business. Sounds like the beginning of another success story, yes?

Crest and troughs, fall and cruise, red carpets and cocktail parties – a dizzy world and Posen’s posse – the shadow of social friends and business bookends – stood behind him, perhaps a few steps behind his family and model friends. But they came unstuck. It’s the story of a rare tragic one, yes?

But then, we must go to back to the start – a New York designer localized into the fast cultural setting. A student of European couturiers, a lover of models, a family man and brother. He was rare, he was like many and he was part of the few.

Today, he shuts down his label, to go back to that. And we’ll pass on his story. And we’ll remember him.

Yes.