15 Hours With Olivia Ponton At New York Fashion Week

Fashion week is when the streets of New York turn into a runway for celebs like Blake Lively and Beyoncé. While fans at home are living for the candid pics of A-listers sitting front row at shows, there’s a lot that goes into attending NYFW, even if you’ve been multiple times before.

This season, frequent NYFW-goer Olivia Ponton was invited to attend the Coach Fall 2024 runway show — and she took Elite Daily along for the ride. Though it wasn’t her first rodeo, the nerves still haven’t gone away. “I've done like five seasons, and it does not get easier,” she says. Being in a room full of the biggest names in fashion can be a lot of pressure, but the 21-year-old content creator says attending NYFW events are as exciting as they are stressful.

Below, Ponton shares her nerve-wracking day prepping for New York Fashion Week, her typical morning routine, and the style trends she predicts will find their way off the runway this year.

Breakfast Really Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

8:30 a.m.: On a typical morning, I wake up pretty early so I can work out before I have meetings or work. But on this day, I woke up, ordered a burrito and a chai latte with extra cinnamon from Bluestone Lane, then had a meeting to go over everything I was doing for the day. First item on the agenda: glam.

9:30 a.m.: One of my favorite parts about going to shows is the actual getting ready process. I started with a shower, then put on eye patches; I always do eye patches before my shows. The ones from Hero Cosmetics are my favorite, because they’re the only eye patches that have really worked for me. On show days, I leave them on for 30 to 45 minutes to make sure my eyes are super snatched.

Then I did a full skin care routine, because I wanted to make sure my skin was like a glazed doughnut. The fashion week cameras are such good quality, so I like to use a body shimmer blurring product from Biossance. I mix it in with Charlotte Tilbury's body cream, and I put that literally everywhere to make sure the spots that people could see were shining.

I know people are iffy on celebrity products, but Rhode is definitely a 10 out of 10.

I also recently started using Rhode in my skin care routine. My dermatologist recommended the brand, and I've been using it for about three months. I know people are iffy on celebrity products, but Rhode is definitely a 10 out of 10.

Besides that, I really love Charlotte Tilbury’s Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray. Day to day, I use a lot of setting spray, but especially before shows, I'm drenching my face in it. I have 30 bottles of it.

10:15 a.m.: The photographer came and we took some photos while getting ready and having my hair done. I'm really close with my hair artist. Instead of scrolling on my phone, we like to talk and chat about random things. She's been doing my hair for two years now, and she's been there through so many steps along the way.

As we talked, she worked on my hair. I knew that I wanted it up because the neckline of my outfit was pretty high. It wasn’t a turtleneck, but it was collared. I love doing my makeup and hair in ways I might not typically do it. It’s somewhat therapeutic for me.

11:07 a.m.: When I was getting ready, I was listening to only Katy Perry on repeat. I actually did my own glam for the show because I like it better. The inspiration for my look was my outfit, which was white. I wanted to go with an angelic, very light face of makeup, and not too heavy on the lips. I have this NYX pencil that is white and shimmery, so I ended up coloring my entire eye with that. (My secret to making my eyes pop: Use white under eyeliner.)

11:45 a.m.: I had my all-time favorite protein smoothie from Juice Generation, but it wasn’t enough to calm my nerves. As time was going on throughout the day, I was getting more nervous. Coach is known for having really fun accessories and the clothing is very simple. I knew that I was going to be walking into this show with some serious fashionistas.

12 p.m.: My stylist came over and we got dressed together. My outfit was this two-piece leather button-up jacket with a long, almost to the floor skirt. My favorite detail was it had these little metal badges on the pocket.

I ended up wearing the skirt backward because I preferred the fit that way. The cut was also in the front of my legs, which was another one of my favorite details. I just loved the buttons as well. They were pretty large and it added such a statement to the shape.

An Emergency Stop On The Way To NYFW

1 p.m.: The show was at 2 p.m., but it was an hour away, so we left around 1 p.m. Myself and the photographer were in the car, and there was a lot of traffic. My photographer is from Brazil, and we talked about Carnaval for 30 minutes, which was happening at the same time in Rio. I was still nervous, and she was there to calm me down by talking about something super random.

1:30 p.m.: We ended up making a pitstop at Equinox, because I had to go to the bathroom. If I had gotten to the venue and there wasn’t a bathroom, I was thinking, “That's going to be a long ride for Olivia.” Keep in mind, I was in a full look, so I was walking into this gym and people were like, “Oh my God, what is going on?” I ran in, I ran out, and got back on the road.

1:45 p.m.: When I got out of the car, there were photographers everywhere. I took a gazillion photos, then went inside. I was excited to see the collection and what Coach is coming out with. Their last show was amazing. I've been seeing them hint at certain trends, so I was excited to see the actual production.

I ran into a good amount of people I knew inside. The girls sitting next to me (Kennedy Eurich and Isabelle Allain) are both some of my good friends. There were also a ton of celebrities. I didn't see any of them while I was there, because we were all in different rooms and sections. However, I definitely heard a lot of screaming from outside, so I knew there were some big people there.

2 p.m.: The show started and I was sitting front row. I like to get an up-close glimpse of what the outfits actually are and see all the cute details on everything, so that was nice. TBF, a majority of the people were front row, because the venue was so large.

One of my favorite looks was a pink sweater that had a bow on it. I can see a lot of girls wearing that. They also had these humongous bags. They were extremely oversized, and had all these little charms. I just thought they were the cutest thing. When I saw them, I was thinking, “I want to be in the airport with that.”

I also saw so many tights with underwear-looking pants. They're very structured, and kind of bulge out a little bit. I can see that being a trend in fashion this year. Those were two standout trends I saw. They also had hoodies with huge trench coats over them. The hoodies were very long, almost like a dress — that look really stood out to me.

The Rest Of My Day Was Chill

3 p.m.: After I got out of the show, I took about a hundred photos. Then, I got in my Uber, and we drove back home. That only took 20 minutes, which is wild.

3:20 p.m.: When I got home, I immediately peeled off all of my clothes, then I ended up reading a book for two hours. It’s called Blush by Helen Hardt. I just started it, so I can’t recommend it yet.

5:30 p.m.: I ended the night going to my friend's birthday dinner. I had roasted salmon with french fries.

I try to go super light on the skin care, because I want to let my skin breathe.

8:30 p.m.: I still had all my hair and makeup done from the show, so when I got home, I took it all off, then followed it up with a full everything shower.

Since I had my makeup on for more than 12 hours for the Coach show, I really wanted to make sure my nighttime routine was super light so I could sleep well. I did use some Hero Cosmetics eye patches again.

11:30 p.m.: When I got into bed, I fell asleep right away.

Overall, it was a pretty chill day — nerves and all.

This as-told-to has been condensed and edited for clarity.