Rihanna makes surprise appearance at Ala?a NYFW show featuring Kendall Jenner on the runway
Rihanna at New York Fashion Week? This is exactly what we came for.
The music superstar, 36, made a surprise appearance at Friday night’s runway show for Ala?a, held in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
According to Vogue, the mother-of-two stalled the start of the show for over half an hour, coming straight from the Daily Front Row’s Fashion Media awards ceremony, where she honored Fenty beauty creative director, Jahleel Weaver.
Glittering in a custom crystal creation from the brand — and clutching a sparkling shawl close to her corseted torso — Rihanna entered the Guggenheim to take her seat on the first floor before the models’ descent down the quarter-mile catwalk.
The French fashion house, best known by the masses for its cult-favorite mesh ballet flat, ended the first official day of NYFW with a star-studded show, with Linda Evangelista sitting front row while Kendall Jenner and Vittoria Ceretti walked the winding ramps-turned-runway of the famous museum.
For the international fashion house, the show marked a grand return to the Big Apple — an ode to Ala?a’s first-ever fashion show at Bergdorf Goodman in 1982.
“New York has a very special significance to me. It’s the city of resilience. And resilience is the feeding ground for creativity,” creative director Pieter Mulier told Vogue of the decision to show at NYFW.
“My time in New York has not only shaped my artistic vision but has become an integral part of who I am. It’s where Ala?a‘s story intersects with the heartbeat of the world. New York isn’t just a destination; it’s a homecoming, a celebration of the past, present, and future of Ala?a.”
The evening, Ceretti told Vogue, was “very special.”
“Ala?a in my opinion, is such an icon of beauty,” she said. “And it’s New York, which to me feels different from Paris in a way that’s young and a bit more raw and cooler.”
The label’s winter/spring 2025 collection was fresh, simple and breezy, with airy, billowing fabrics and a more neutral color palette.
The luxurious garments lacked bells and whistles — quite literally, there were “no buttons or zippers,” legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath, who created the “seamless” beauty looks for the show, told Vogue.
And when there were more structural, avant-garde items — frocks covered in fringed coils and puffed pieces, some of which ballooned all over or only at the hemline — they seemed to mimic the architecture of the iconic venue, with its spiraling rotunda and bulbous exterior.
Notably, the “spiral number,” a series of gowns near the end of the runway collection, appeared to mirror the waves of the museum’s interiors, per V Magazine.
