Welcome back NYFW

Every year, as the Labor Day weekend wraps, and the official NY Fall social season begins, the impending New York Fashion Week looms over the city. Whether you follow the designers or not, you can't help but be energized by the events of the week. It's impossible to ignore. Thousands of men and women plan out their outfits with more detail, as if suddenly everyone decided to elevate their personal fashion game. And often times it is not the PR fashion girl with the latest shoes, but the girl taking the subway to work with distinctive style, that steals the thunder. (There is a reason while street style blogs are the most viewed. You simply cannot buy style.

I have a complex relationship with fashion. I love it, I hate it. It's frivolous, it's self expression, it's art (in the hands of the right designer, anyway). It's always been part of my life, from my internship at Seventeen Magazine to my years of covering fashion week for countless other NY magazines and blogs...September's fashion week still excites & intrigues me (tied only to couture week in Paris). And so, as I am away from NY for Fashion Week for the first time in a decade, I am pretending I am there by indulging in a fashion documentary marathon, from "September Issue" to "Lagerfeld Confidential", "YSL", "Bill Cunningham's NY" and "Valentino". Ah, memories of my early career. For the week, I will live vicariously through fave fashion bloggers like "Sterling Style" and "Eat Sleep Wear". For more on NYFW, follow me on Twitter @CarrieAMitchell