Fashion

Batsheva‘s resort 2022 is a love letter to New Yorkers, all of it photographed on and worn by the beautiful locals. With her photographer husband, Alexei Hay, she set up a booth in Washington Square Park and recruited people in the area to change into her spring offering and model it spontaneously. One went full Dovima in a strapless ’50s-style golden gown and kitten heels. Another just tossed an ivory dress coat over their regular clothes, coffee cup in hand. There are teen goths, lovers, sisters, NYU graduates, and passersby smiling throughout the look book, a total celebration of New York back in action. The breadth of this season’s offering is as diverse as the people in the clothes: a skateboarder wears a roomy midi-housedress in a hologram print. Best friends sport a shapeless glittery dress inspired by a traditional Hasidic style and burnout velvet pants. A roller skater chose practical black-and-white ruffles while a pair of sisters model crochet tops and skirts. This is probably as close as we’ll get to “probably back to normal” this summer – and it looks great. And what’s new in the designer’s gradually-evolving dictionary? On a basic level, school clothes make sense as an inspiration for Batsheva Hay – and not just for their sweetness. She started her brand as a young mother, aiming to make funny dresses that work for working moms. Now her daughter, Ruth, is well into elementary school with a uniform of a pinafore, shirt, and cardigan. Hay has sized up each of these to an adult scale and rendered them in shades of neon yellow, brown, and cherry red, adding rosettes to the boxy sweaters.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Daniel Lee and his Bottega Veneta are definitely in a good mood, and look forward to the the joyful re-emergence that might finally arrive this summer-slash-autumn. The pre-fall 2021 outing that (Instagram-less) brand calls “Wardrobe 02” is a bold line-up of essentials sprinkled with a few of the so-odd-it’s-good whimsies that will soon become collector’s items. Yes, the company will be selling the roller skates that Oumi Janta and Malick Bodian model in these pictures. It’s also a branding exercise, with a look book lineup that includes, in addition to the roller skaters, the musicians Skepta, Arca and Neneh Cherry; the dancer Roberto Bolle; artist Mark Leckey; and Central Saint Martins B.A. fashion course leader Sarah Gresty, a friend of Lee’s from his school days. “It’s people who we aspire to see in the clothes,” he told Vogue. “And there’s big diversity, from music, film, dance, theater, art, skateboarding.” As that roster suggests, and as previous Lee runways have told us, there’s nothing conservative about Bottega Veneta essentials. For Lee and his team, clothing is performance. That’s clear from a look that’s feathered in aqua blue plumes from its high neckline to its pants hem, from an intricately beaded knit BV-green evening dress, and from a giant leather belt that twists around the torso like a helix. But it also goes for straight-world-passing tailoring. The tweed suits are boardroom safe, but they’re definitely not boring. “They’re generic in a way. I like this idea of quite banal everyday clothes” Lee said. “But when you see the fabrics in real life there’s always more to [them]: the tweeds that stretch, the beautiful fabric development, the garments that are constructed without linings. There’s a lot of love and attention in the details, and that we really get off on, honestly.” What you can’t miss is the sense of fun Lee and company are having. His feathery party pants are a guaranteed good time and the clearest signal yet that post-pandemic fashion is going to roar indeed. “The world needs fun now. We want to be provoked,” Lee concluded.