Christian Siriano transports New York Fashion Week attendees to the silver screen

NEW YORK (AP) — Hidden behind cream curtains, designer Christian Siriano transformed the athleisure aisles of the Herald Square Macy’s department store into a cinematic universe as he ushered his New York Fashion Week runway show attendees on a journey through film from black-and-white gowns to full Technicolor looks.

Much like his inspiration for his runway show, the VIP guestlist was straight out of Hollywood. Whoopi Goldberg sat between Oprah and singer Lizzo. Front row celebrities cheered as longtime Siriano muse Coco Rocha opened the catwalk in her classic high powered supermodel strut, wearing a black-and-white stripe and polka dot organza blazer paired with a mini skirt and matching hat.

For his spring 2026 collection, Siriano said he drew inspiration from actor Marlene Dietrich and how she played with both feminine and masculine styles.

“A lot of the collection is black-and-white, but a lot of texture,” he said. “We have this beautiful plaid sequin, polka dot, stripes ... that she’s worn in her kind of repertoire of clothes and then we end in this idea of like, what if all of a sudden the film turned to color?”

Sticking with the old Hollywood glamour theme, models wore their hair in slick backed buns with one pin curl wave. In a modern twist, some models wore their structured blazers with only tights.

From tailored blazers to voluminous bubble dresses, Siriano played with patterns and structure throughout his collection.

Siriano relied on his color palette to transport attendees to the silver screen with black-and-white patterns from polka dots, stripes and plaid at the top of his show before transitioning his looks to Technicolor fabrics including a tiffany blue ball gown and a barbie pink deconstructed tuxedo dress.

The show was a first for “White Lotus” star Natasha Rothwell. “I want to spend an insane amount of money,” she said after the show. “For my first fashion show, it was everything.”

Attendees came dressed ready for the drama in their tulle and corsets. Singer Adam Lambert arrived in a bronze belted blazer coat with matching oversized bronze sunglass shades.

On the runway, Siriano dressed models of all sizes, genders and backgrounds in his designs. The designer continues to champion inclusivity while others have pulled back.

“It’s just important to have a mix of beautiful people, he said.

Siriano accessorized his designs with an array of flat top and oversized whimsical hats. The designer himself has worn his fair share of hats.

Siriano, who won the design competition “Project Runway” in 2007, recently returned to offer his expertise as a mentor to emerging designers on the newest iteration of the show, which features image architect Law Roach and supermodel Heidi Klum.

Siriano is also serving as creative director for Macy's ready-to-wear I.N.C. brand as it marks 40 years. Siriano said by bringing fashion week to Macy's he hoped to bring customers back to retail shopping.

Minutes before the start of the runway show, Siriano's backstage crew were sewing and touching up the final look of the night worn by Rocha, whose showstopping moments have become a signature element of Siriano's shows. In a black-and-white polka dot billowing gown, Rocha elegantly posed as she sauntered in the off-the-shoulder tulle look to close the catwalk

“I love my shows to be a little bit more like a performance too,” Siriano said. “I want people to feel like when they walk in the room, they’re in a different world. We work so hard on making all these beautiful things, and I think it’s escapism. We need that so much right now.”

Jordan Roth attends the Christian Siriano Spring/Summer 2026 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Models walk the runway during the Christian Siriano Spring/Summer 2026 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

A model walks the runway during the Christian Siriano Spring/Summer 2026 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

A model walks the runway during the Christian Siriano Spring/Summer 2026 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

A model walks the runway during the Christian Siriano Spring/Summer 2026 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

The Pentagon said Thursday that it is changing the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes so it concentrates on “reporting for our warfighters” and no longer includes “woke distractions.”

That message, in a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's spokesman, is short on specifics and does not mention the news outlet's legacy of independence from government and military leadership. It comes a day after The Washington Post reported that applicants for jobs at Stars and Stripes were being asked what they would do to support President Donald Trump's policies.

Stars and Stripes traces its lineage to the Civil War and has reported news about the military either in its newspaper or online steadily since World War II, largely to an audience of service members stationed overseas. Roughly half of its budget comes from the Pentagon and its staff members are considered Defense Department employees.

The outlet's mission statement emphasizes that it is “editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command” and that it is unique among news organizations tied to the Defense Department in being “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.”

Congress established that independence in the 1990s after instances of military leadership getting involved in editorial decisions. During Trump's first term in 2020, Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried to eliminate government funding for Stars and Stripes — to effectively shut it down — before he was overruled by the president.

Hegseth's spokesman, Sean Parnell, said on X Thursday that the Pentagon “is returning Stars and Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters.” He said the department will “refocus its content away from woke distractions.”

“Stars and Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters,” Parnell wrote. “It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.”

Parnell did not return a message seeking details. The Daily Wire reported, after speaking a Pentagon spokeswoman, that the plan is to have all Stars and Stripes content written by active-duty service members. Currently, Congress has mandated that the publication's publisher and top editor be civilians, said Max Lederer, its publisher.

The Pentagon also said that half of the outlet's content would be generated by the Defense Department, and that it would no longer publish material from The Associated Press or Reuters news services.

Also Thursday, the Pentagon issued a statement in the Federal Register that it would eliminate some 1990s era directives that governed how Stars and Stripes operates. Lederer said it's not clear what that would mean for the outlet's operations, or whether the Defense Department has the authority to do so without congressional authorization.

The publisher said he believes that Stars and Stripes is valued by the military community precisely because of its independence as a news organization. He said no one at the Pentagon has communicated to him what it wants from Stars and Stripes; he first learned of its intentions from reading Parnell's social media post.

“This will either destroy the value of the organization or significantly reduce its value,” Lederer said.

Jacqueline Smith, the outlet's ombudsman, said Stars and Stripes reports on matters important to service members and their families — not just weapons systems or war strategy — and she's detected nothing “woke” about its reporting.

“I think it's very important that Stars and Stripes maintains its editorial independence, which is the basis of its credibility,” Smith said. A longtime newspaper editor in Connecticut, Smith's role was created by Congress three decades ago and she reports to the House Armed Services Committee.

It's the latest move by the Trump administration to impose restrictions on journalists. Most reporters from legacy news outlets have left the Pentagon rather than to agree to new rules imposed by Hegseth that they feel would give him too much control over what they report and write. The New York Times has sued to overturn the regulations.

Trump has also sought to shut down government-funded outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that report independent news about the world in countries overseas.

Also this week, the administration raided the home of a Washington Post journalist as part of an investigation into a contractor accused of stealing government secrets, a move many journalists interpreted as a form of intimidation.

The Post reported that applicants to Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would advance Trump's executive orders and policy priorities in the role. They were asked to identify one or two orders or initiatives that were significant to them. That raised questions about whether it was appropriate for a journalist to be given what is, in effect, a loyalty test.

Smith said it was the government's Office of Personnel Management — not the newspaper — that was responsible for the question on job applications and said it was consistent with what was being asked of applicants for other government jobs.

But she said it was not something that should be asked of journalists. “The loyalty is to the truth, not the administration,” she said.

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

US soldier Sgt. John Hubbuch of Versailles, Ky., one of the members of NATO led-peacekeeping forces in Bosnia reads Stars and Stripes newspaper on Sunday Feb. 14, 1999. (AP Photo/Amel Emric, File)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stands outside the Pentagon during a welcome ceremony for Japanese Defense Minister Shinjirō Koizumi at the Pentagon, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf/)

FILE - A GI with the U.S. 25th division reads Stars and Stripes newspaper at Cu Chi, South Vietnam on Sept. 10, 1969. (AP Photo/Mark Godfrey)