New York Fashion Week is going postal.
The Spring 2016 show is moving from landmark Lincoln Center to grungy West Midtown, at the Moynihan Station, which houses the city’s general post office at West 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue, according to Women’s Wear Daily.
The unrefined neighborhood is a far cry from Fashion Week’s previous chic digs at Lincoln Center – but designers like Rag & Bone and 3.1 Phillip Lim have held shows at the post office before, Racked New York reported.
Long Island resident Latoya Monach called the new location right across from Penn Station the “dirty 30s” and said there are always tons of “shifty characters” lurking around.
“Fashion Week will be New York’s cleanest versus New York’s dirtiest,” she said. “Bryant Park is clean and it feels more upscale. Down here feels the opposite. I know New York is grungy, but I don’t think Fashion Week has to be grungy.”
The star-studded event will take place at Skylight, a 74,000 square foot event space located in the post office’s former mail sorting room and postal dock.
The West Village will also get the Fashion Week treatment with its first-ever men’s event in July at the Skylight Clarkson Square on Washington Street, according to Racked.
Fashion Week, which generates an estimated $865 million annually for the city, was tossed out of Lincoln Center after parks advocates settled a suit over misuse of a nearby park.
It hosted its last show there in February and previously called Bryant Park home for 17 years.
“As IMG prepares to evolve New York Fashion Week, we are focused on creating the best possible experiences that extend beyond a physical location and moment in time,” Mark Shapiro, the head of IMG, the group that puts on Fashion Week, told WWD.
“We’ve found a great new home for that in Skylight at Moynihan Station and Skylight Clarkson Square.”
The Moynihan Station location is a stop gap until Fashion Week moves to its permanent home at the planned Culture Shed at the Hudson Yards.