NEW YORK, Feb 18 — As New York Fashion Week comes to a close, here’s a look back at a few of the more memorable moments of the last seven days, including an award-winning singer making up for a bit of petty theft by styling a designer’s runway show, a Real Housewife who left her sickbed to sit in the front row of the Tommy Hilfiger show, yet another brand extension by The Row designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and an infant who made her runway debut in her mother’s arms.

Moonlighting as a stylist

At the Pyer Moss show at Milk Studios on Saturday, a quintet played classical music in hospital gowns, a jacket had the message “You don’t have any friends in LA” written across the breastplate, and the final model held a sign that said: “My demons won today. I’m sorry”.

In case you couldn’t tell, the theme of the show was depression, although the Pyer Moss designer, Kerby Jean-Raymond, was quick to point out afterward that the idea was at least partly ironic, a tragicomic “Coen Brothers movie”-like device he used to spoof the often self-serious fashion world that he sees himself as being outside of.

The show was styled by the R&B singer Erykah Badu, who sat in the front row, wearing a blue jumpsuit-like outfit and a black chauffeur’s hat. Her hair was done in pigtails, and she wore orange nail polish on one hand and yellow on the other.

She called this discordance the “double binding of two conflicting ideas that leads to depression”, and it was hard to know what she meant or if she was kidding.

After all, this is a woman who in early February described her collaboration with Jean-Raymond as “almost like Picasso inviting Monet over to his house to help him add a little blue or green”, and then on the day of the show professed to have no memory of saying any such thing.

“Who said that?” she said, sitting backstage with Jean-Raymond after the show. “I think I was just being cynical. It was probably the last interview of the day.”

Anyway, the collaboration got its start about a year ago, when Badu borrowed some of Jean-Raymond’s clothes for a string of press appearances and then refused to return them.

Rather than being angry, Jean-Raymond was amused and asked her to collaborate with him on his show.

And although Badu said she “doesn’t follow fashion per se”, she is pleased to work with anyone whose values are “bravery, honesty and fearlessness.”

Which is how she said she views Jean-Raymond, whose last collection had models walking around in blood-spattered footwear as a movie played about police brutality and racism.

“How do you feel?” Badu asked after the show, clasping his hand in hers.

“I feel amazing,” he said, giving her a little smile. — Jacob Bernstein

A mother in the front row

Yolanda Foster, the mother of Gigi Hadid and a former model herself, was at the Park Avenue Armory on Monday, watching from the front row as her daughter walked in the Tommy Hilfiger show.

As loyal viewers of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills know, Foster has battled Lyme disease these last few years (as well as other cast members who have questioned whether she has been exaggerating her illness all that time), while also getting divorced from her husband, the music producer David Foster.

“You know, this is actually only the second time I’ve ever been able to make it out to see her walk,” Foster said of Gigi, her 20-year-old daughter from her first marriage, to the Southern California real estate developer Mohamed Hadid. (Foster said on the talk show What Watch Happens Live on Tuesday night that she has decided to revert to the name Hadid, to be consistent with that of Gigi and her two other children, Bella and Anwar.)

“I managed to make it to the Victoria’s Secret show, and now this, but otherwise it’s too much for my body to handle,” Foster said. “But I live-stream everything. I make sure to watch it all online. Oftentimes I end up crying because I am just so proud. They grow up so fast, don’t they? But maternal instincts never stop.”

Foster said she was feeling optimistic about her next steps.

“I still only get three good hours a day, but I am determined to make the most of them,” she said. “I’m meeting publishers in New York this week and am now focusing on getting a book out documenting my journey with this terrible disease. I’ve now travelled to 11 countries and seen 106 doctors and been to hell and back. I want there to be a resource for people on what treatments work and what don’t. I feel like I’m finally making steady progress, one day at a time.” — Elizabeth Paton

The Olsen twins’ new lenses

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen rolled into the Oliver Peoples Madison Avenue boutique on Tuesday night for a party celebrating their first eyewear collaboration. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the reluctance of The Row designers to engage much with the public or the press, they have cheekily named a pair of US$340 (RM1,413) oversize tortoise sunglasses “Don’t Bother Me”.

“Whatever you write tonight, however the story comes together, it’ll feel like you’re writing about someone else,” Mary-Kate said to a reporter invited to cover the party. Ashley, standing nearby, nodded.

The chunky glasses befit the Olsen twins for reasons other than the not-so-welcoming name, of course. They have a kind of past-meets-future look, as if they drew their inspiration from little old ladies from the 1950s but would now likely be seen on someone like Kate Moss or Jessa from Girls.

Other styles being introduced by The Row and Oliver Peoples this season include a US$440 translucent update on the O’Malley, Oliver Peoples’ most iconic frames. Then there is a round, brass-accented pair, the sort one might expect to see on a surviving member of the Beatles, speaking at a Ted Conference.

“Those were in our show Monday,” Ashley said, popping them on just long enough for a photographer to get a shot.

A waiter approached and handed the twins some Champagne.

David Schulte, the Oliver Peoples chief executive, reached over to Ashley, then to Mary-Kate, clinking his glass against theirs. “Cheers!” he said.

“Cheers,” Ashley and Mary-Kate said, almost in unison. — Jacob Bernstein 

A mother on the runway

When she opened the Gypsy Sport spring show last season, Diandra Forrest, a model with Krush Model Management, was emphatically pregnant. On Tuesday, she closed the show, sauntering down the runway with her six-week-old daughter, Rain, clutched to her chest.

Spectators, many of whom assumed Forrest was nursing her infant on stage, were shocked. She had in fact been breastfeeding backstage moments earlier. But by the time she reached the runway, Rain was slumbering peacefully.

“I’m a new mum,” Forrest said after the show. “When my baby’s hungry, she gets what she needs.”

“I’m not making a statement,” she added. “It’s just part of life.” — Ruth La Ferla/The New York Times