When Alexander Wang last month announced that he would present his autumn 2014 show in Brooklyn rather than Manhattan, it confirmed a trend that we at Never Underdressed started thinking about last season.

Opening Ceremony presented its collection at a disused pier (models arrived on the catwalks in cars and guests partied by the river afterwards), while Philosophy showed on the Highline (hands up who was caught in the authentic 19^th century lift breakdown afterwards).

Travelling between consciously ‘raw’ industrial spaces in the city last September, during the spring 2014 shows, we noticed, with each exposed girder, every traffic-stopping show venue and curated bit of derelicte, how not only American designers but also the event as whole had begun to feel more ‘London’.

Until then, shows in the city had been largely confined to the main site of tents at the Lincoln Center and Bryant Park before that, Midtown locations both in the island’s commercial gut: temporary structures that didn’t feel particularly idiosyncratic or evocative. There were a few names that decided to strike out and use studios elsewhere in the city, of course, but it was always done with a deliberate sense of slickness, prioritising perception over experience, rather than anything more subversive.

Brands are recognising, in the age of social media, Twitpics and Instagrams, that their venues are no longer simply backdrops but also stage sets, if not directly reflective of the collection they’re showing then in some way atmospheric.

They’ve realised what London did some time ago, that the best things you can offer a weary and (sometimes) impatient fashion journalist during the shows is a.) a breathtaking venue of staggering splendour or squalour for them to broadcast immediately to their followers while they wait for the first look to step out, or b.) a location or building that feels like such a hidden gem that not even life-long New Yorkers might know it exists. Especially so in the case of Saturday’s Alexander Wang show, tickets to which contain step-by-step driving instructions and a discount on car-sharing service Uber.

Wang’s choice is interesting. For years, his label was wed to a certain Soho aesthetic – the ‘model off-duty’ uniform of distressed denim and grungy leathers coined by Erin Wasson with whom Wang used to work closely on his shows. Wang set the pace of young New York, with very much a Manhattan outlook. So the move to Brooklyn doesn’t signify a departure from his modish and youthful street-inspired look – rather it points to where all the modish and street-wise youths now live. Thanks to Williamsburg hipsters, Girls and the Occupy Movement, Manhattan isn’t the magnet it used to be for a generation of yuppies, creatives and beautiful people.

The reason this feels so familiar to the Brits who attend the shows there is that it’s reminiscent of the shift in London venues from central and Chelsified locations to the East End. What began in the Nineties, thanks to Alexander McQueen, culminated in one season, when editors were practically zig-zagging between Shoreditch and South Ken with every show – they might have missed many of them, but it served to show the polar ends of the city’s fashion spectrum, spanning established heritage brands to burgeoning young names.

In car parks, schools, warehouses and empty office blocks, the likes of Gareth Pugh and Giles showed collections that were far from commercial, and which felt right in these surroundings. They were events, life-markers and memories, but also cultural indicators.

New York designers are very different, of course. They’re disciplined and business-like in a completely different way. But the city’s fashion week last season became the most talked about of the main four online (according to Digital Language Monitor’s tenth annual survey) – and with the rise and rise of near-universal access at the shows, it makes sense to give that digital audience something to talk about. This is what Alexander Wang has aimed for, and it’s what designers working beyond the city’s traditionally commercial strictures – Thom Browne, say, or Hood By Air – are looking to achieve with increasingly conceptual and theatrical set pieces.

In the old days, London designers looked overseas to bolster their creative credentials with commercial backing. In New York, the investment and infrastructure is all there. So the current change of outlook is all about making things more exciting for the spectators. For which we’re very grateful indeed.