New York City Ballet’s 2025 Fall Fashion Gala
New York City Ballet‘s annual Fall Fashion Gala will take place on Wednesday 8 October 2025. It will celebrate choreography and costume design, with a world premiere performance by choreographer Jamar Roberts, former Resident Choreographer and dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; this will be his third work for NYCB.
The ballet will feature costumes designed by the Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, and will be set to music by Venezuelan musician, record producer, and multidisciplinary performance artist Arca, with lighting by Tony Award-nominated lighting designer Brandon Stirling Baker.
The gala programme will also include William Forsythe‘s Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux (from 1992), with costumes by Gianni Versace set to a score by Thom Willems; and Gianna Reisen’s Composer’s Holiday (from 2017), with costumes by Virgil Abloh and set to a score by Lukas Foss.
Following the first performance at the Fall Fashion Gala, this programme will be repeated with the addition of Alexei Ratmansky‘s Voices, which was created for NYCB in 2020.
NYCB’s Fall Fashion Gala was conceived by NYCB Board Vice Chair Sarah Jessica Parker, and launched in 2012 with a gala celebration of designer Valentino. The event has since featured costumes designed by more than 30 fashion designers. All of the designs have been created in-house at the New York City Ballet Costume Shop in collaboration with the designers and NYCB’s Director of Costumes Marc Happel.
Since its inception in 2012, this annual celebration of ballet and fashion has raised more than $33 million for New York City Ballet. The Chairs for the 2025 event will include Parker and Georgina Bloomberg, Carmen Busquets, Andy Cohen, Laverne Cox, Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Bridget Everett, Emma Gray, Jill Kargman, Diane Kruger, Desi Lydic, Nicole Ari Parker, Zanna and Mazdack Rassi, Amy Sedaris, Elaine Welteroth, and Scott Wittman.
Benefit-priced tickets for the gala evening at the David H. Koch Theater, which include the 7pm performance, a pre-performance reception, and a black-tie supper ball following the performance, are available through the NYCB Special Events Office at 212-870-5585 or at nycballet.com/fallgala.
Tickets for the performance only are also available at nycballet.com, by calling 212-496-0600, or at the David H. Koch Theater box office, located at West 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue.
WORLD PREMIERE
Music by Arca
Choreography by Jamar Roberts
Costumes by Iris van Herpen
Lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker
JAMAR ROBERTS is a choreographer and a former dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where he was Resident Choreographer from 2019 to 2022. Roberts has made six works for AAADT: Members Don’t Get Weary (2016), Ode (2019), A Jam Session for Troubling Times (2020), Holding Space (2021), In a Sentimental Mood (2022), and Al-Andalus Blues (2024). He has also set Gemeos (2016) on Ailey II.
For New York City Ballet, he has created the film Water Rite (2020) and Emanon – In Two Movements (2022). He has also been commissioned by Vail Dance Festival, New York City Center’s Sara Mearns: Artists at the Center and Fall for Dance Festival, The Juilliard School, BalletX, San Francisco Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, ABT Studio Company, Parsons Dance, Martha Graham Dance Company, Miami City Ballet, and Works and Process at the Guggenheim, where he created the film Cooped. The March on Washington Film Festival invited Roberts to create a tribute to John Lewis, and he also made the film The First Bluebird in the Morning for the LA Opera.
Roberts is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School. He first joined AAADT in 2002 and retired from dancing in 2021. His awards include the 2016 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer and he has performed as a guest artist internationally, including with the Royal Ballet in London, as well as with Ailey II and Complexions.
Roberts was a Director’s Fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, Creative Associate at the Juilliard School in 2023, and has been twice featured on the cover of Dance Magazine.
IRIS VAN HERPEN, widely heralded as one of fashion’s most forward-thinking designers, seamlessly bridges the realms of fashion, nature, art, and science. Since its establishment in 2007, the Maison of Iris van Herpen has consistently combined innovative techniques with traditional couture craftsmanship, resulting in sensorial designs that beautifully capture the intricacy and diversity of the natural world.
Born in 1984, Iris van Herpen grew up in the village of Wamel, the Netherlands, in harmony with nature and the living world, which are, along with the classical dance she practised intensively from an early age, the founding elements of her relationship to the body.
After a formative period with Alexander McQueen and Claudy Jongstra, she founded the Maison of Iris van Herpen in Amsterdam in 2007, combining the subtleties of craftsmanship with the pioneering spirit of innovation, decompartmentalising and opening up her practice to a host of other disciplines, resulting in sensorial designs that capture the intricacy and diversity of the natural world. Four years later, she joined the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris. The year 2010 marked a turning point in her career: she presented her first 3D- printed dress from the Crystallization Collection, currently conserved by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
Van Herpen previously collaborated with NYCB on the costume design for Benjamin Millepied’s Neverwhere, which premiered at the 2013 Fall Fashion Gala.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
