By: Katrina Gross ~Staff Writer~

It’s that time of year again when experienced fashionistas and newbies to the fashion world alike flock in troupes to the top fashion capitols of the world.

They go to see what the oldest established design houses and new up-and-coming designers have spent the last few months putting together as previews for the upcoming clothing seasons.

Fashion month, culminating all the fashion weeks, always starts in New York City with the famous New York Fashion Week (NYFW).

This year, NYFW had a number of elements that made veterans of the event and fashion world alike feel that the experience was particularly unique from NYFW’s of the past.

Amid the influx of new styles, colors, patterns and accessories that are predicted to be in style for the Fall 2016 season, a few new trends in the social fashion world seem to be appearing as well.

Designers such as Diane Von Furstenburg and Tommy Hilfiger used social media as a focal point for their fashion shows. They staged them around the audience’s tendency to post the shows and outfits on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram.

Furstenburg booked only models with extremely large followings on social media (models including Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss and Jourdan Dunn) for her Fall 2016 show.

Another surprising trend featured in the clothing and shows that stem from the lower-fashion world was prominent branding of clothing, which would normally be associated with streetwear brands such as Supreme. Designers embracing the bold branding trend include Alexander Wang and DKNY.

One element of the week that was new to NYFW was designers living up to their promise of featuring a wider range of models in terms of age, race, gender identity and size, as opposed to past fashion weeks. Many designers, including Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs and Rihanna’s show for Puma all featured types of models not seen in the fashion world before.

This was also carried over into the makeup for the shows with models that were styled by Nars for Marc Jacobs, sporting over 6 different makeup styles. Individuality was also seen in the haircuts of models in the Alexander Wang show.

With the trends concerning clothes, accessories and shoes that generally come from NYFW it is also interesting to note the social trends that emerge from the iconic fashion week.