It was 5 a.m. on the fourth day of the Spring 2002 season and Liz Lange was wide awake, a ball of excited nerves. The high-end maternity designer was scheduled to show her very first collection at the tents in Bryant Park. Her slot? 9 a.m. on September 11th, 2001. “I remember all these camera crews were leaving mid-show and I thought that was so weird. Backstage, everyone was just so confused.”

The 9/11 terrorist attacks changed the world, and the fashion world was no exception. That morning, while a fog of incomprehensible shock unfurled over the city, those with shows on the schedule had to enter into crisis mode. “We had three or four shows that day,” KCD president Julie Mannion says. “You’re so shocked, you’re in denial.”

Fashion week was ultimately cancelled and the industry stood at a hallowed standstill. In the days that followed, designers asked the same question most of America was: What now?

A few, those designers with the resources such as Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, showed their collections in intimate presentations, opening up their studios to a small selection of press and buyers in the weeks that followed.  “We had presentations in the showroom about 10 days later,” Karan says. “And in a strange way, it was comforting to hold onto one another and reclaim our way of life. In so many ways, it was a blur. But I learned over the years that you somehow carry on.”

Smaller brands didn’t have the means, especially after the overexertion of having planned (and paid for) a fashion show that never happened. Anna Wintour decided to take action. So on September 21st, in Carolina Herrera’s showroom, Vogue and Style.com staged a group show for 11 of the most promising small-scaled labels, titling the event An American View. Rebecca Taylor, Peter Som, and Behnaz Sarafpour were among the selections.

It marked a seismic shift in the industry, a refocusing on fostering the talent of new designers, which bore programs like the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and the CFDA {Fashion Incubator}.

The CFDA has also blocked out the 9 a.m. time slot on the Fashion Calendar on Sunday, Sept. 11, this year to mark the 15-year anniversary of the attacks and has made a $15,000 donation to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center. Of the anniversary, the CFDA’s President and CEO Steven Kolb says, ““As we approach the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the CFDA would like to honor the victims of the attacks and mark the importance of the day that changed the course of history, and will forever be linked with the September shows.”

As CFDA Chairwoman Diane von Furstenberg puts it,

We rebuilt. We are resilient, but we don’t forget. We remember.