The Survivor – The New York Times

Shedding the Concern

At first, Sept. 11 appeared just like the worst factor that might occur, however it turned out to be only the start.

“There have been a lot of laborious moments,” Ms. Woroniecka mentioned. “Clearly 2008. Barneys going bankrupt — that was 25 % of our wholesale income. Covid was an enormous one.”

It wasn’t solely Covid, both: Simply earlier than the pandemic, she and Mr. Borthwick, who had photographed all of the Zero collections and labored out of their brownstone, separated after greater than three a long time collectively. Then, briefly order, Ms. Cornejo moved, acquired Covid after which acquired breast most cancers. (It was caught early, and she or he is now most cancers free.) “Stuff occurs on a regular basis,” she mentioned, “however this time all of the stuff occurred without delay.”

When the pandemic hit, she mentioned, “I believed ‘OK, we’re going out of enterprise.’” Then she herself acquired the virus. “I used to be by myself,” she mentioned. “New York was actually scary, and you might hear the ambulances day and night time.” She determined to remain dwelling and nurse herself. “I’d reasonably be in my very own mattress than someplace the place persons are panicking,” she mentioned. “It was fairly liberating to lose that concern.”

By means of all of it, she had her job. “After I was going by my divorce, my work was the one factor that stored me from falling aside,” she mentioned. “I take a look at myself within the mirror now, and typically I don’t even acknowledge myself, however in my work I do know who I’m.”

(She and Mr. Borthwick just lately collaborated for the primary time since splitting up, on her Twenty fifth-anniversary ebook, which options her fan group as fashions — her son, Joey; Chloë Sevigny; Brooke Williams of the Resistance Revival Refrain; the 74-year-old photographer Francesca Sorrenti.)