NEW YORK, Sept 17 — Last Friday evening, a pier overlooking ground zero turned into the modern-day equivalent of “La Dolce Vita” when Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci made his New York Fashion Week debut.

Ostensibly, the show was about religion and the legacy of 9/11. But messages like that can become obscured when the impending arrival of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian holds up the proceedings for more than an hour.

Nicki Minaj was there, looking in her leopard print dress like the incarnation of Jessica Rabbit. A few feet away was a more understated Julia Roberts, standing in her black tuxedo jacket and matching pants, with a dash of black eyeliner. Seated toward the back were Christina Ricci, Courtney Love, Deborah Harry, Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Hudson and Erykah Badu. Even Pedro Almodóvar was in attendance, having come all the way from Madrid.

And that was to say nothing of an older woman standing at the front gates professing to be a member of New York’s first family.

“I don’t think we were expecting Governor Cuomo’s mother,” a member of Tisci’s staff said incredulously into his headset. “Make her show ID.”

Ah, well. If you want to get into this designer’s club, there is a big line.

Kanye West, from left, Riccardo Tisci and Kim Kardashian West at the Givenchy show during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 11, 2015. — Picture Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times

Over the last decade, Tisci has slowly become the most socially connected fashion designer of his generation, a man whose tentacles extend from Oscar contenders to reality show participants, top-drawer artists to gay night-life promoters, barely legal models to surgically altered socialites.

And his commitment to diversity has helped propel him to the top of his game not just with the usual crowd of (mostly) white editors and fashionistas but also with a strikingly multicultural fan base.

Badu and Victor Cruz have appeared in his ad campaigns. Jay Z and Beyoncé are on his speed dial (and were at his table at the Met Gala). And then there are vacation buddies like Madonna and Kate Moss, corporate collaborators like Nike (which recently hired Tisci to do a sneaker line), and a beaming boss named Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, who was seated this evening in the front row, looking pleased as punch at the event’s stellar turnout.

Backstage was Marina Abramovic, the art director for the show, an endeavour she estimates took six months (those in the audience familiar with the cost of these productions said it was most likely one of the most expensive fashion shows New York had ever seen).

But just how did this 41-year-old man with deep dark eyes, short black hair, a thick Italian accent and an inconspicuous uniform of black T-shirts, black shorts and black shoes win over all these glittery people?

Nicki Minaj, in a leopard print dress, waiting for the Givenchy show to start during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 11, 2015. — Picture Stefania Curto/The New York Times

How did a man who just a decade ago was entirely unknown, a man whose debut collection was described by critics as “poorly organised and chaotic” (The New York Times) and “pretentious and “perplexing” (Style.com), come to this?

Perhaps it was in the stars.

In 2005, after the departure of Julien Macdonald, he was hired by Givenchy. Although it was a storied house founded in 1952 by Hubert de Givenchy, who gained fame dressing Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy, it had fallen on hard times. And Tisci bombed with his first collection.

“It was a little too much gothic,” remembered Carine Roitfeld, then the editor of Paris Vogue, speaking by phone. “It was not so much success, but it was very much him. You could see he had talent.”

And he quickly saw that celebrities would be valuable to him, even if he rejects the idea that this was the guiding principle behind his social machinations.

“I don’t dress celebrities for the sake of dressing celebrities,” he insisted. “I dress people I like.”

Julia Roberts, in a black tuxedo jacket and matching pants, waiting for the Givenchy show to start during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 11, 2015. — Picture Stefania Curto/The New York Times

Among the first was Courtney Love, who was hired by Tisci to perform in 2007 at his atelier, in a white Stevie Nicks-meets-Catholic-Italian-housewife couture gown. Then, stylist Arianne Phillips called and asked Tisci to send in some sketches for Madonna’s 2008 world tour, which led to a meeting with the diva, a job designing her black bedazzled costumes and, subsequently, a friendship.

“I just stayed at her house in the Hamptons,” Tisci said during the visit in June.

He became pals with West, who hired him to design the cover of his album collaboration with Jay Z (all gold embroidery, very Givenchy), then selected him to be a co-director for the rappers’ tour.

Tisci has nothing but love for West, seeing in him a maverick, a punk-rock icon for a hip-hop age. In 2014, West and Kardashian called on Tisci to design outfits for their wedding, and he created a dress that later landed on the cover of Vogue.

By this point, Givenchy’s skeptics in the media had long since come around.

LVMH, Givenchy’s parent company, increased the number of free-standing stores from around a dozen when he started to nearly 50. (The latest store in New York, which opened a few weeks ago, is its 57th free-standing location.) Retailers were increasing their orders.

“It’s a growing business,” said Neiman Marcus’ Ken Downing, who said that the black leather handbags, sporty hip-hop-inspired menswear and heavily embellished women’s ready-to-wear are among Givenchy’s best sellers of late.

A model stands at the Givenchy show location during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 11, 2015. — Picture by NowFashion via The New York Times

And in January 2015, Tisci got another boost when Julianne Moore accepted her Golden Globe for best actress in a dark sleeveless metallic Givenchy dress.

Tisci is a pack animal. Nearly all the people in his circle, including Ricci and Amanda Lear, have a story about meeting another glittery person they never would have gotten to know were it not for him. One celebrity friend gets connected to Tisci via another celebrity friend, and then Tisci connects the newest entrants to his roving band of selfie-taking merrymakers.

“I met Madonna, I met Alicia Keys through him,” Abramovic said. “Every time you are at his table, he makes sure there are models, artists, everything. He is a magnet.”

When West became involved with Kardashian, Tisci introduced her to Roitfeld, who then put Kardashian on a 2013 cover of her magazine, CR Fashion Book.

A reported ban on Kardashian at the annual Met Gala was lifted two years ago when Tisci hosted it with the fashion world’s supreme empress, Anna Wintour of Vogue.

“In a way,” Wintour said, “Riccardo reminds me of Gianni Versace because he’s such an open, lovely person that people are drawn to him.”

The atelier at Givenchy, preparing for the Spring Summer 2016 collection to be shown during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 10, 2015. — Picture by Chad Batka/The New York Times

Tisci’s close friend Ladyfag, the night-life promoter, said: “He didn’t have a father growing up, so it’s interesting he’s become this patriarch for all these different people. It’s not planned out, but I do think there’s something to that.”

Like the celebrities he cavorts with, Tisci has a schedule that no longer resembles a normal person’s. He is endlessly late and constantly rescheduling. A trip to New York scheduled for July was moved to August and then September. A meeting scheduled for Monday was moved to Tuesday, then Wednesday and finally Thursday.

The afternoon before his fashion week show, on the third floor of the West Chelsea building where Givenchy had set up shop, people talked in hushed tones about how to say no to Riccardo. On the second floor, models mixed with seamstresses lurched over their sewing machines. Others hung out in a coffee area eating tarts and croissants.

The mood was neither lazy nor to-the-bone, but instead like a film set, as work and pleasure bumped against each other, and everyone vacillated between looking captured and as if there was no better place in the world to be.

As for Tisci, it perhaps makes sense that after spending a decade tending to the whims and unique scheduling patterns of rappers and movie stars, the ability to make people wait is now a luxury for him.

Mariacarla Boscono, an Italian model, photographed during a fitting for the Givenchy show during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 10, 2015. — Picture Chad Batka/The New York Times

It is a symbol both of having arrived and of — just as often — wanting not to be found.

Indeed, sitting on his large black leather sofa in front of yet another large cactus, smoking yet another American Spirit later that afternoon, Tisci said his biggest desire was for the week to be over so he could go spend an anniversary with his boyfriend.

One year, five years or 10? a reporter asked.

“One month,” said Tisci, adding that they met in Ibiza.

Forty-one years and much success have done little to change Tisci’s childlike demeanour.

For one, he still bites his nails when he is nervous. For another, he does not so much sit in a chair but recline in it, as if he is constantly waiting for something, whether it is caffeine, American Spirits — or, more profoundly, inspiration. He is both a boy whose mama loved him a lot and a man determined to rebel against that.

He’ll design a Victorian-inspired floor-length gown, then stick it on a transgender model named Lea T. He likes to call his most recent menswear collection “Jesus in Prison.”

Riccardo Tisci, in the VIP area at the Givenchy party, during New York Fashion Week, in New York, September 10, 2015. — Picture Rebecca Smeyne/The New York Times

Last week, three male models showed up for a casting. Two had a cornfed Calvin Klein-pinup look, and a third seemed to have come straight out of a Larry Clark film: His skin was dark and ruddy; his hair had an orange tint. Tisci cast him immediately and sent the other two men packing.

His explanation? “Givenchy is supposed to be a little dangerous.”

Recently, there’s been talk that Tisci may be on the way to somewhere bigger and better. His name was in heavy rotation when Frida Giannini was forced out at Gucci last year, and there was much chatter during fashion week that his show was not just an anniversary party but perhaps a farewell.

Wintour is one person who would like to see him stay put.

“I hope we see a little less musical chairs in fashion,” she said. “Givenchy is a great platform for him.”

Tisci professes to agree.

“In 10 years, a lot of people approach me,” he said. “When you make a house successful, people approach. But I always decline everything because I’m happy where I am. I want to concentrate on Givenchy.” — The New York Times