Diane Vara, the Communications Director and Partner of New York City’s Runway 7, is gearing up for another successful run with next month’s NYFW. Runway 7 showcases upcoming, emerging, global, and CFDA designers every season. Vara is an accomplished professional with a degree in Business Management with a concentration in Merchandise Marketing. She started her brand and ideas with business partner Anthony Rosa and together Runway 7 was created.
This September, expect the largest showcase yet, doubling in designers from previous seasons. I talked to Diane Vara about the inception of Runway 7, the future of the showcase, and what to expect from another creative Runway 7, which is just around the corner.
How are you today?
I’m doing well. I just got off a few phone calls with some of our designers. As you can imagine leading up to the show, we are kind of on crunch time with the team.
How did you get involved with Runway 7?
My degree was in Business Management with a concentration in Merchandise Marketing. I wanted to be in the fashion industry but wanted to see how the business was ran, so I stayed with business. I’m kind of like a melting pot. I run a real estate team. I’m an entrepreneur. I am the communications director of Runway 7. Our CEO Anthony Rosa and I have been in our lives for fourteen years now. I came to him initially as a client looking for manufacturing need for my client. At that time, he was creating a young girl’s brand called Chic. We decided to take the brand to several different New York Fashion Week platforms. After seeing how several different brands handled their business, we looked at each other one day, and Runway 7 was incepted from there.
Runway 7 prides themselves on diversity and inclusion. How do you know what designers to choose from?
This is going to be our largest showcase yet. We have only showcased about fifty designers at the most in previous seasons and we are almost doubling that this September. Now with the extensive amount of applications, we can pick and choose and curate a little bit more. We like to utilize our platform to be able to give any designer an opportunity. We look at sustainability, green companies, and emerging brands.
If you have seen some of our previous line ups, we had renown designers, like CFDA and international designers that are more well known, and we also pull designers from all parts of the world that are coming to our platform to showcase and get their brand and name out there.
Sony Hall is such a great venue for Runway 7 and NYFW. How did you initially pick the venue? Will it change location in the future?
We have been able to establish great relationships with everyone at Sony Hall. We have built our own fashion family with them, being so they are great to work with, thus we utilized this venue repeatedly. It’s such an iconic space. I think we are at the point that we have outgrown Sony Hall. We do plan on keeping the relationship, but we are eyeing the Manhattan Center for 2024. We want to keep Sony Hall for some of our more emerging designers and CFDA designers for the Manhattan Center.
How has Runway 7 evolved throughout the years?
Initially we were going to launch during the pandemic. During that time, it was more trial and error and we did live streaming but it didn’t go so well. This time, we are able to position live streaming to about 20,000 different retailers to provide the designer to commerce type of relationship, so it expands to that commerce side. We can have buyers and retailers watching, so there could be more opportunity to take place for the designers.
What can we expect from next month’s NYFW and the future of Runway 7?
Next month will be our biggest showcase yet. We got some really great partnerships that we established. There will be amazing closeout shows, particularly Actively Black, which is a brand that is coming back to our runway. They will be closing out with a private show and an after-party Friday September 9. On Saturday September 10, we have got a great party we will be hosting with Dreamland. We have so many different designers from around the world: 16 different countries that we will be showcasing from ready to wear to couture. In the future, we want to expand and travel. We want to go to Los Angeles and Miami as well.
$100,000 in charity goes to MS. How important is this cause for you?
Yes, this is at the core at of everything we do. It is to able to give back to the MS Research. Anthony’s brother passed away from MS. He battled it for over 23 years. During this season we hope to give back $100,000 or more to the cause.
Tickets to attend Runway 7 at New York Fashion Week or to stream the shows online are available now at https://tickets.runway7fashion.com.
