New York

Joy! Christopher John Rogers SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

It’s good to finally see some delightful, statement dresses this season – thanks to Christopher John Rogers and his spring-summer 2021, which is as joyous and vibrant as Róisín Murphy new album, Róisín Machine (personal association I had in my mind the moment I saw the looks). The pause provided by 2020’s COVID-19 stay-in-place orders led many designers to rethink how they’ve been doing business, but for Christopher John Rogers, all the hours spent indoors allowed him a moment to appreciate what’s been working. Since launching his brand in 2016, Rogers and his team have been working nonstop, moving quickly from inspiration to execution. The breakneck pace did little to impede their success – he’s fresh off a 2019 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund win – but Rogers appreciated the chance to reflect. “In the past, there wasn’t time to think about why we’re doing the things we’re doing,” he told Vogue. “Part of the reason why the collections have been so well-received is that they’ve been quite visceral in terms of the way they were conceived. [Our team] has been like, ‘This feels exciting, we enjoy this’ instead of investigating why. This time it has been nice to parse through the reasons I’m attracted to certain things and how that can serve where we want to take the brand.” After the bombast of his autumn-winter collection, Rogers stripped things down, designing not just for the A-list celebrities who’ve been drawn into his sphere, but the everyday people looking for a luxury mood booster. Colour and embellishment were used to elevate closet staples into something that feels fantastical. A button-down shirt was upgraded with rainbow crystals, while white suiting received vibrant topstitching on cuffs and lapels. Away from the studio and unable to do some of the draping he’s become known for, Rogers took things old school and pulled out the Crayolas. “I was away for four months and couldn’t do anything physical with my hands, so I just bought crayons and color pencils and started scribbling like I was a kid,” says Rogers, who has a background in fine arts. “I wasn’t trying to create anything specific; I just wanted to have fun and express myself. It’s about getting back to the way children see the world through very simple shapes. They put energy on the page when they draw, so this was about simplifying and translating that energy into the clothes.” Tapping into the vitality of naive art doesn’t mean making clothes that feel juvenile. Rogers struck a balance between the more whimsical elements of the collection and the glitz that has put him on the speed dial of Hollywood’s top stylists. Having mastered voluminous ball gowns, he gave slinkier fare a try with a sequin catsuit for body-conscious clients. The silks and satins were replaced with easier to wear cotton and taffeta fabrics, but the aesthetic shifts were slight. “It’s nice to know that all these different types of people with differing interests, body types, and personalities can find themselves within this aesthetic,” explains Rogers. “Ultimately, that’s the point.” This might be the official end of fashion month, but some brands which have skipped the schedule will pop up sooner or later – staying in tune!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Contemporary Elegance. Vaquera SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Although digital-live Paris Fashion Week has officially started today, there are still some great collections coming from New York. One of them is Vaquera, a line-up that ironically muses on different kinds of elegance, created by Patric DiCaprio, Claire Sullivan and Bryn Taubensee. Over the summer, one of the most “outsider” brands out there got suddenly certified by the upper echelon of fashion – but not the most common one, though. After hosting their autumn-winyter show back in February, Dover Street Market added Vaquera to the roster of brands it supports through its Paris showroom slash incubator. DSM will help with production and handle all sales and distribution, “the backend stuff that takes us away from being creative,” as DiCaprio put it. The point of the arrangement is that with DSM handling the commercial side of the business, the Vaquera trio can focus on creativity. But the partnership has already impacted how they’re channeling that creativity. “Knowing they’re going to be there on that side helping us with sales was really inspiring, for me at least,” DiCaprio continued. “We were like, ‘Let’s make this skirt perfect and the fit really nice and make these fabrics really good so they look good in their showroom.’” Their new collection is a sort of codifying of the Vaquera ethos and aesthetic. Wearability has been emphasized without forsaking too much of their hold on weird. So side by side there are washed denim jeans cut to fit both guys and girls and a Little Bo Peep cosplay outfit in white canvas and croc-stamped vinyl. Mixing with twisted bankers stripe shirts and oversized suiting is a tutu explosion in an amorphous body-obscuring shape of the kind you might see on a Comme des Garçons runway. “We were inspired by what we want to wear, what our friends are wearing, who we’re with,” Sullivan elaborated. “That’s so much of what Vaquera is: context, reference, culture. What do you wear, what do I wear, how do we make it Vaquera?” In certain neighborhoods of New York this summer it wasn’t unusual to see women wearing their bed clothes on the street, one of the many impacts of months in lockdown. In the look-book, that translates from innerwear to evening-outerwear. What makes it Vaquera is that all genders sample the retro bra tops and the satin and lace teddies affixed to T-shirts. New, never-average, edgy elegance for whoever feels it.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Beautiful. Simone Rocha SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Simone Rocha‘s beautiful spring-summer 2021 line-up was actually this first collection that truly made me gasp this season. It’s amazing how this independent designer builds her visual language with every season, making clothes so distinct and consistent, yet never boring or monotonous. As many labels, Rocha didn’t have a fashion show, but a presentation in a London gallery for a few editors. And while other collections this season might have a problem of being ‘on their own’ – no runway, no fabulous show venue – Simone’s clothes are so good and considered that they do the talking. Still, she loves a real show. “I’m not going to lie: I’ll be the first to say I love runway shows,” Rocha told Vogue. “Now that the pace of shows has been stripped away, I wanted to find a space to represent that. It’s important to me to find a way to physically share the collection, just for the silhouette, texture, and weight of it. Clothes are made of cloth, and emotions, and they come to life on a body.” Those garments check all the boxes. “Sobering and exploding, pragmatic and foreboding,” were key words Rocha said she’d scribbled in her notebook at the start of it. She’d also pulled up Richard Prince’s erotic Bettie Kline images and paintings of Nell Gwyn, mistress of Charles II, with her celebrated jewel-bedecked bosom on display. Close up, the layers held little messages: on tulle veiling, patterns of castles; in the broderie anglaise, the label’s monograms. “Castles in faraway places,” she laughed. “I think that’s the escapism we’re all craving.” And everywhere, there were the pearls which are now her signature, as headdresses, breast outliners, and scaled up in 3D to form a bag. Some of the models held a few of these bags, and the overall feeling of it was sort of magical, out-of-this-world. This might be the wardrobe for a modern-day Venus – take that white, caped gown or all the layered outfits that simply stun with all the details. I will say it once again: beautiful!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Walk That Walk. Eckhaus Latta SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

I loved Eckhaus Latta‘s spring-summer 2021 collection for its honesty and rawness. Walking became, thanks to COVID, pretty much everyone’s primary outdoor activity these days. As a parallel to that, the show celebrated this fact. It was staged outdoors, underneath a section of New York’s FDR Drive where a long, straight jogging path provided a runway, and with a bare minimum of fuss: hair au naturel, model-applied makeup, no soundtrack, just an abbreviated collection and the train rumbling by now and then. “We wanted it to feel, like, no spectacle,” Mike Eckhaus explained after the show. “Like the models could just be going out for a walk with their friends.” The clothes matched that easygoing manner. There were stylish sweats, of course, but also baggy jeans and knit suiting and gingham tops with the airiness of wind-borne kites. The most fitted looks were knit and the most tailored were done of featherweight nylon, the material often patchworked together in tonal color blocks. These were casual items, but every garment seemed to have been hand-worked, and that gave this collection a bit of emotional undertow; in a socially distanced era, it felt as though Eckhaus and Zoe Latta were communicating touch through their clothes. That was true of the collection’s ornate crochets, but it was also true of the hand-dyed jeans and the burnout florals. Smart, authentic, durable clothes for the new reality.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Lightweight Cool. The Academy New York SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

One of my favourite discoveries from the digital New York Fashion Week is The Academy New York. Making it through the last half year has been challenging for all brands, big and small, but Swaim Hutson might’ve had it harder than most. The Academy New York is his one man show, and autumn 2020 was the first season he’d hooked up with Stella Iishi’s The News showroom to turn what had been a personal passion project into an honest-to-goodness wholesale operation. He took to Instagram last week to celebrate the fact that, despite the pandemic, he was able to produce and ship the collection to 10 stores. Another reason to celebrate is the brilliant spring-summer 2021 line-up. Tennis, a childhood pursuit of Hutson’s, is the organizing theme behind the collection. One check pantsuit was overdyed a tennis ball yellow and there are riffs on on-court attire in the form of a short knit polo dress and elongated tennis skirts in a lightweight suiting wool. He’s also elaborated on his sweatsuit offering; now there are hoodies and crewnecks, pants and shorts. Leather biking shorts are another nod to the way things are now. But tailoring The Academy’s biggest signature. On that front the most interesting development was an oversize double-breasted jacket long enough to wear with bare legs – and a pair of his tennis bloomers. Another favourite – and a great styling tip! – was the blue shirt-dress worn with over-sized denim pants and minimal ballerinas. Cool and easy.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.