Time For Fun. Batsheva SS24

September 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Batsheva Hay is in her daring, experimental era: for the past few seasons she has been pushing against the limits that delineate what her brand can be. “I have no classical fashion background, so I learned with cut-and-sew garments, and it was all handed off,” she explained. “I used to feel like I couldn’t work with the garments. I had to hand things over, then pick them up, and it was very nice for my lifestyle. Then I’d go home and nurse my baby and then hand her off, pick the clothes up, pick out the buttons or whatever.” She laughed at the familiar juggling of so many women who go home at the end of a workday for a different kind of work. “But now I find the really fun part is tearing things, shredding things, adding little bustles, pinning things onto things. And I do think that’s an important part of what distinguishes my brand from other brands; that there’s a little bit of naivete in it. It’s not quite feral, but just the amateurness of it all.” For sping-summer 2024, Batsheva went The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with all the 1950s volumes and colours, but also in the sense of humor. These “grotesque experiments,” as Hay calls them, involved her pinning a surplus of cotton placemats and oven mitts that she had lying around. “I just started safety-pinning them on my body, and I thought, Oh, it’s so sexy,” While the oven-mitt dress feels very much like oven mitts that have been safety-pinned together when you’re just “being goofy,” the experimentation did take her to some groovy places. Like the dress made from delicately embroidered cotton placemats, which has a sort of romantic quality to it, and the top made from floral-print cotton placemats, which Hay draped over a white cotton “cheerleader full-circle skirt” with turquoise godets further propped up by a hoop skirt underneath. If it all sounds a little nutty, it is, but it also feels wearable and oddly accessible. Hay expanded, elongated, or otherwise stuffed some of her go-to silhouettes, like the turquoise dress modeled by Amy Fine Collins, which is one of her bestsellers, and the high-waist, pleated skirt in turquoise with embroidered kissy prints, which she makes every season in different fabrications. The designer was also having fun at her presentation inside the BondST restaurant at Hudson Yards, where models holding little number signs walked around guests, midcentury couture show style, while Hay narrated the looks and then opened the floor for questions and comments from the audience.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Back To Black. Batsheva Resort 2024

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“I get uncomfortable when there are too many things in the collection that aren’t pieces that I love. So I’ve really tried to make it what I want to wear now.” Meaning: Batsheva Hay has a colour palette of black, white and gray on her mind, and likes to wear variations of dresses in 1950s style. That’s clearly reflected in her resort 2024 offering. In recent seasons Batsheva has been experimenting with various directions she can take her New York-based brand without completely abandoning what has made her successful in the first place. For this season that meant vintage-y silhouettes and barely any printed cotton. “It’s really all about different fabrics,” she said. Highlights included a black velvet long sleeve dress with a white lace-up detail running from bust to shoulder; a streamlined maxi dress with flared sleeves and a slight mockneck in shiny black sequins, and a long ruched body-con velvet dress in a dark wine color (one of three colorful pieces in the collection) with a high neck and a slightly padded shoulder. Hay may be queen of the dress, but she loves a matching set, and she had some great options, including a black high waist a-line skirt and button-down with a “funny firework embroidery” in sequins; a four-button jacket with dramatic ruffled sleeves and a matching maxi skirt in an abstracted floral silk jacquard; and a black taffeta button-down and matching cropped bootcut trousers decorated with all-over rhinestones. Though it skews more serious than her usual offerings, resort still bears her off-beat charm.

A couple of my favourite Batsheva pieces you can shop now:

Batsheva cropped leopard-print cotton-velvet top

Batsheva x Laura Ashley ruffled floral-print cotton-poplin mini dress

Batsheva lace-trimmed pintucked embroidered cotton-poplin mini dress

Batsheva pearl-embellished faille blouse

The Attitude. Batsheva SS23

September 16, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Batsheva‘s spring-summer 2023 fashion show was a bold and charismatic scene. Ben’s Kosher Deli on West 38th street was this season’s venue, and it was filled with Batsheva Hay‘s friends, muses and clients – both sitting in the dining booths and walking the runway. This season, the designer wanted to challenge herself. “I started thinking about Gunne Sax, because I’ve so Laura Ashley’d myself out that I was like, ‘Let’s go into this more ’70s kind of vibe,’” she said after the show. “I was appalled by how I continually make such frumpy garments, and I thought, the only thing I can do is try to do something sexy, show more skin and make it sexy… or whatever.” The sexiness was there in the fabrics, like the white mesh with black flocked velvet stars that was used on a short princess sleeve cropped top with Batsheva’s signature ruffle on the chest, worn with a matching mid-rise maxi skirt (complete with red lace underwear visible underneath). It was also there in the Working Girl-esque ensemble of a slim button down shirt tucked into a pencil skirt with a peplum, all done on a red polka dot on white fabric and accessorized with a floral print tie and red polka dot mesh gloves. Hay’s challenge to show more skin resulted in bikini tops, lots of PVC, and a wide variety of shorts including bloomers – in an all-over bow fabric with a corset-inspired cotton shirt with a sailor collar, and modeled by Kembra Pfahler – which seemed to epitomize the vibe of this collection. The cast included Jordan Roth, Hari Nef, and Jemima Kirke and Alex Cameron – the couple opened the show in sort of matching white PVC wedding looks. “This felt like a really big show,” Hay said, “Post-COVID, I’ve never done anything that felt as grown-up, so I kind of looked back to where I started, and largely I am still using the same shapes, but they look completely different because I’ve changed proportions, I’ve changed fabrics.” She added, “I wanted to make it like it was me, but also kind of unrecognizable.” There were a few gowns that may not have fit into her demand for more skin, but were attractive in the confidence of their shape: a spaghetti strap dress made from a pink with black polka dots taffetta fabric was cinched at the waist like a cummerbund, and overflowing at the bust with ruffles. Another came in a purple iridescent fabric with a slight sweetheart neckline and a big bow at the waist, and a high-low overlay over a column skirt. It was Dynasty, it was over-the-top, and it was unmistakably Batsheva.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Batsheva Charm. Batsheva AW22

February 15, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

“It’s big, broad, and for everything she might want to do,” says Batsheva Hay of her autumn-winter 2022 collection. Her blooming label is no longer just about timeless prairie dresses. Now she has pushed her aesthetic into housecoats, and sweatshirt skirts, and pajama sets, and quilted vests, and blouse and skirt sets, and tiny scalloped edge knits, and… well, you get it. Hay is putting her twist on almost every category, denim to debutante dresses. It might read as a commercially minded play, and, yes, more clothes means more opportunity to expand the business, but as Hay tells it, this season was really about taking all the her friends and customers have been giving her for years. “People always send me pictures of Sharon Tate’s wedding dress,” she says, “so finally I just made one.” Her take is denim with dusty rose velvet trim. For those who want body-con, there is a tight maxi dress covered in funny crochet granny squares. Simplicity seekers have asked for black: now Hay has her most streamlined, no ruffle black velvet dress with vintage ribbon trim. A gray cardigan with hand-crochet trim is a tip from Jenna Lyons, who advised Hay to just remake all her popular blouse shapes as knits. The many velvet coat-dresses, with prim bows and sweet little hoods, are Hay’s advice to herself: something cute and sweet for all weather. The glue that binds her diverse work together is her own sense of quirky weirdness. Of the grandma-style florals she says “you need something a little repulsive!” Not abandoning her weirdo sensibility while being able to expand into new realms is her great strength.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Her World. Batsheva Pre-Fall 2022

December 30, 2021 | Design & Culture by Ed

The heartbeat of Batsheva has always been designer Batsheva Hay herself. She started her brand making clothing she would like to wear, then friends in New York propelled her personal designs into an organically thriving business. In the four years since, Hay’s operation has grown immensely, with global stockists and categories like homewear, accessories, and fun collaborations. In Manhattan, she’s moved out of her home office and taken over two spaces in New York’s Garment District: one holds her studio and design team, just down the hall a room overflows with floral prints, ruffle dresses, and tiny tchotchkes in Hay’s ditsy patterns. How can a brand so personal evolve and succeed as its orbit grows beyond its iconoclastic founder? The good news is Hay is always – and has always been – willing to share her weirdness. Even if she holds up a block print checkerboard print, a bustier maxi dress in black, or a tank dress as items that don’t jibe with her personal style, she is quick to find ways a Batsheva acolyte could incorporate them into their wardrobe. Layering remains key. New dress shapes like a mod babydoll in black eyelet and a ’70s-inspired, A-line shirtdress broaden the offering and edge it, just maybe, into more quote-unquote normal clothing territory. Of course even a Batsheva basic comes with a little cheeky wink. Her chambray shirts and white blouses are predicated on giant pouf sleeves and adorned with excess eyelet ruffle trim. There is a new pajama set and a continuation of her pantaloons and ruffle-trim trousers, now in dusty caramel florals and navy moiré. The tenor of this off-beat, easy and somehow glamorous clothing feels right as we kiss 2021 goodbye and look forward to the first (we hope) good new year in a while.