The first New York Fashion Week was held in 1943. Organized by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, it was initially called Press Week and became the first organized fashion week.
The event emerged during World War II, when fashion journalists and buyers could not easily travel to Paris, then the dominant center of international fashion. Lambert created Press Week to direct attention toward American designers and give them a stronger platform with the fashion press. The New York Dress Institute, an early promotional organization for the American fashion industry, supported the effort.
The strategy worked: magazines such as Vogue began giving more space to American fashion and designers. By the mid-1950s, the event was commonly known as Press Week of New York. The phrase New York Fashion Week describes the later, modern system more precisely; the Council of Fashion Designers of America helped establish the centralized contemporary format in 1993.
Thus, 1943 refers to the event’s origin, while 1993 marks the modern centralized organization—not the first New York fashion showcase.