New York Fashion Week has been ruined by bizarre brand collabs with weed dealers and porn sites — here’s what went wrong

That’s 1 pricey crockery dressing.

In February astatine New York Fashion Week, Melke designer Emma Gage debuted a capsule postulation riffing connected an improbable source.

Not Chanel, not Marilyn Monroe — Hidden Valley Ranch.

The line-up —  5 pieces base value tags of up to $1,000 — was straight-up sponsored by nan condiment brand, and featured patterns inspired by its iconic seasoning packet.

Gage’s apparel became a viral sensation — for each nan incorrect reasons.

While manner outlets dutifully reported connected nan baffling matchup, immoderate connected societal media savaged nan pairing — driving yet different liking into nan bosom of nan twice-annual event that New York fashionistas utilized to unrecorded for.

What connected world happened?

Twenty years ago, Bryant Park was nan spot to be. What took spot successful nan tents those fewer days coiled up making world headlines.

This was a clip erstwhile a explanation for illustration Heatherette would nonstop Paris Hilton and Naomi Campbell down nan aforesaid runway while Boy George crooned and Anna Nicole Smith made a astonishment cameo to adjacent nan show — dressed successful a pinkish rhinestone-studded dress, lip-syncing to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

“A sound said to me, ‘Fashion is nan caller stone ‘n’ roll,’” p.r. maven and reality TV fixture Kelly Cutrone told The Post of her earliest years successful nan business.

She’s worked connected shows since nan mid-1990s pinch her patient People’s Revolution and was a popular civilization powerhouse successful that era.

“Well, it was, and now it’s not,” she told The Post.

And how. This past year, New York Fashion Week has been each but taken complete by sponsors that are much WTF than VIP.

There’s Goldfish (Kate Barton incorporated nan celebrated snack into a handbag), Qdoba (chip pants, pinch edible accessories) and even “The White Lotus” (take your prime of brands glomming onto nan 3rd play of nan HBO megahit).

And coming up later this week, cannabis “concept store” Gotham will brace up pinch a drawstring of designers including Collina Strada — which will nonstop models down nan runway successful limited-edition button-downs featuring “a discreet vape pocket.” Veuve Clicquot will partner pinch French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus to observe nan Champagne icon’s vessel design, while eBay will nexus up pinch Erdem to beforehand nan commerce site’s secondhand fashions.

Clothes are progressively an afterthought — now it’s each astir cold, difficult cash, and nan vibe displacement is unmistakable to nan city’s snobbiest explanation hounds.

“When I was increasing up, each I wanted to do was spell to manner shows, beryllium a exemplary aliases beryllium there. I was sneaking into each frigging show,” Hayley Corwick, a k a Lila Delilah, of manner and shopping blog Madison Avenue Spy, told The Post.

“Now, erstwhile I get invitations, I don’t consciousness for illustration taking an Uber there. Even nan group successful manner aren’t going to nan manner shows anymore,” she sniffed.

What went wrong?

It’s a problem that’s been brewing since nan commencement of nan century, insiders say.

That’s erstwhile mega-agency IMG took nan reins from OG organizers nan Council of Fashion Designers of America — quickly showing their purpose was to beverage arsenic overmuch money arsenic it could from nan then-star-studded event. (At slightest Mercedes-Benz, which famously first took title-naming authorities backmost successful 2007, was classy.)

Erin Hawker, Agentry PR laminitis and different show fixture, didn’t mince words: “They sold nan s–t retired of it, a $45,000 show package to each world designer who wanted to show successful New York. And [that] diluted it.”  

The almanac ballooned unmanageably, made worse by spats betwixt IMG and CDFA, making coordination near-impossible and show clashes commonplace.

IMG’s attempts to reclaim cachet — underwriting shows for basking designers for illustration Joseph Altuzarra — came excessively late.

“The harm had been done,” Hawker shrugged.

Then came nan Great Recession. Up until then, NYFW was astatine slightest centralized — its reddish velvet-roped pop-up Midtown clubhouse becoming nan astir in-demand spot successful nan city.

“I retrieve stepping successful location and location was a Moët & Chandon barroom pinch a cardinal champagne glasses,” swooned Hawker. “It was truthful sexy and truthful great.”

After 2008, IMG sewage itchy feet, hopscotching nan arena astir municipality — and ne'er really uncovering their measurement back.

The agency’s impulse to diverge besides drove up costs. Bryant Park’s venues were tried, existent and fundamentally turnkey. Starting from scratch successful a stand-alone abstraction was overmuch harder — and much expensive.

Cutrone told The Post that baseline budgets per show coming tin easy apical six figures: $38,000 to $58,000 for a venue, $20,000 for lighting, $15,000 for sound and $40,000 for a exemplary roster — prices that galore are hesitant to salary erstwhile they tin easy slap up an influencer-led societal media run for acold less.

“The sponsors went to integer trading campaigns, thing pinch contiguous eyeballs,” insider Chris Constable, laminitis of manner trading agency CCPR, told The Post.

“The manner organization were nan arbiters of style — think “Devil Wears Prada” “cerulean blue” [monologue] — but now everyone wasn’t looking to manner magazines, but to influencers,” Constable said.

It was some cheaper and much effective to scatter retired connected backing immoderate tiny content, dressing a fewer street-style types, alternatively than salary for a large arena successful nan tents. 

Then, location were different affronts — the ill-advised Fashion’s Night Out event, for example, which launched successful 2009 pinch a ngo of making manner accessible to nan public. (Remember nan near-riot business successful Soho successful 2012?)

Magazine editors, their salaries nether threat, moreover started trading their hard-to-score arena tickets to unknowns — diluting nan prima powerfulness of nan once-obsessed-over seating charts.

And those publicity-driving celebrities, who utilized to inhabit nan beforehand rows? Most are now bought up by brands, CCPR’s Constable noted — pointing retired that personification for illustration Louis Vuitton ambassador Emma Stone would beryllium contractually barred from attending rival brands’ runway shows, assuming she moreover wanted to.

Even City Hall has apparently mislaid what small passion it whitethorn person erstwhile had for nan arena — and appears disinterested successful helping reconstruct it to immoderate benignant of erstwhile glory.

More than 1 successful each 20 New Yorkers is employed by nan manner sector, but according to statistics, Fashion Week receives almost nary charismatic support — unlike rivals successful Paris aliases Milan, wherever section authorities person been known to fork complete rate to thief pinch arena development.

In nan cash-is-king Big Apple, designers must drawback immoderate backing root is connected connection — and that backing is progressively off-brand. Cutrone herself has been partnering pinch Pornhub arsenic a backer for runway shows, and will do truthful erstwhile much this season.

“Sex and manner person gone manus successful manus since nan opening of time,” she said.

“And wherever other is simply a young designer going to get money to salary for nan show?”