\n\tThis season in New York, he will light\u00a0the Empire State Building Wednesday alongside model and activist Bethann Hardison and Imad\u00a0Izemrane, chief executive officer of N4XT Experiences, as part of the official opening of New York Fashion Week. The building will be lit in blue, Wilson\u2019s favorite color.<\/p>\n
\n\tN4XT Experiences was\u00a0cofounded by Izemrane, who had formerly operated the Spring Place event space, to reinvent NYFW<\/a> and build a future-forward platform for American fashion. The company, which\u00a0specializes in creative direction, brand strategy and experiential programming that merges fashion, beauty, gaming and culture, acquired LA Fashion Week in 2022. When IMG announced its plans this spring to pivot<\/a> from\u00a0producing a centralized venue for NYFW<\/a>: The Shows to concentrate on facilitating partnerships and creative collaborations between brands and designers, N4XT jumped in.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBut N4XT will not just be an IMG follower. Instead, Izemrane said it will host a number of designers including\u00a0Brandon Maxwell,\u00a0Simkhai,\u00a0Off-White,\u00a0Sergio Hudson,\u00a0Tibi, Altuzarra,\u00a0Kallmayer,\u00a0Kate Barton and Aknvas\u00a0at various venues around the city.<\/p>\n \n\tAdditionally, KFN, a subsidiary of N4XT Experiences, has opened its showroom, High Line Nine, for various brand events.\u00a0On Thursday, Vivienne Sabo will host\u00a0a consumer-facing event during the day, as well as cocktails in the evening, while Maison Perrier will be on-site throughout the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIzemrane said the designers who are working with his company only to have to worry about the \u201cfront of house,\u201d and his company will take care of everything else. And the lack of a centralized location is also intentional because it will allow each brand to select a venue that is special to them. \u201cIn the new digital era where content and the material that you create from your show is essentially your marketing campaign, everybody wants to have their own background, their own look and feel and taste that\u2019s connected to their collection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFrom day one, N4XT Experiences has been committed to reshaping the cultural zeitgeist through live events that drive both consumer and industry engagement,\u201d Izemrane said.\u00a0\u201cLike Russell, we aren\u2019t afraid to reimagine the rules. His voice, creativity, and leadership will play an integral role in the continued evolution of the N4XT platform.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tImad Izemrane<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of N4XT Experiences<\/p>\n \n\tHe added that after being introduced to Westbrook by a mutual friend, he realized it was \u201ca perfect match for us, considering everything else that he\u2019s doing with giving back to the community and having such a big voice in the world of fashion. We couldn\u2019t be more honored and blessed that somebody of his stature in sports, in doing good, in fashion, in culture, was excited to join us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBeing named resident curator for N4XT Experiences in both LA and NY is an incredible honor,\u201d Westbrook added. \u201cFashion has always been a way for me to express myself, but what excites me most is the chance to use this platform to further build community and shape programming by creating space for creativity, culture, and purpose to collide.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe continued: \u201cI\u2019ve been in fashion and involved in designing and creating and doing different things for many years now. But I\u2019ve always tried to find ways to kind of make an imprint in fashion in any way that I can. And N4XT has the way to do that. When I invest in something, I want to be involved start to finish, and I\u2019m super excited about this.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWestbrook, best known for his Hall of Fame-worthy basketball career, has long had an affinity for fashion. Over the years, the\u00a0NBA\u00a0star has partnered with everyone from Barneys New York and Jordan Brand to True Religion and Zenith watches.\u00a0Nine years ago, he launched his own brand,\u00a0Honor the Gift, an affordable streetwear label, and in June, he partnered with fashion industry veteran Gary Wassner, <\/a>chief executive officer of Hilldun Corp., and his son Cole Wassner, CEO of Wassner Management Group, on a new elevated sportswear and denim collection called appropriately: Westbrook by HTG.<\/p>\n \n\tHe said he finds fashion as \u201ca way to bring communities and cultures together.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe athlete also had a charity, the Why Not? Foundation, that works to empower children and adults in underserved communities. Because of a charity poker game he\u2019s hosting Thursday in Las Vegas, Westbrook said he won\u2019t be able to attend NYFW this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"N4XT Experiences is unleashing the big guns for its New York Fashion Week introduction.\u00a0 The event producer and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[90297,3031,355,90298,99],"class_list":["post-145703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-fashion-shows","tag-los-angeles","tag-nba","tag-nyfw","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Imad](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-wwd-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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