Dolls in Paris. Vaquera SS26

September 30, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

At the beginning of the month, I found myself thinking about how much Vaquera’s bravado and energy are missed in New York. Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee have now fully relocated their operations to Paris, and their affection for fun and fashion – both with capital “F’s” – has an intoxicating effect. You can’t help but smile when you see their fabulous hats swathed in netting, worn so nonchalantly with draped party frocks in clashing fabrics and over-the-top volumes. Keeping things lighthearted and doll-like, their mini-dresses (some in kitschy-chic prints) were really only half a dress, suspended from one side of a pointy cup bra and paired with track pants or a faux-fur skirt. The all-striped jersey look with a draped rosette on the shoulder? It’s a clear nod to Carrie Bradshaw in Paris, when she stepped out onto her Plaza Athénée hotel balcony to gaze at the Eiffel Tower. It’s safe to say that Paris now boasts two of New York’s finest – and utterly opposite – exports: The Row and Vaquera.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Bonkers Glam. Vaquera SS25

September 24, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Vaquera opened Paris Fashion Week with bonkers attitude – but one that is also commercially viable. “We’re still very punk in our roots,” said Bryn Taubensee, “but we’re asking ourselves, how can we also make it easy for people to understand and wear, and easy enough for us to survive?” Patric DiCaprio, the other half of Vaquera’s heart, put it more bluntly: “Shooting ourselves in the foot isn’t really where we see the future for our lives and this brand.” That’s why the spring-summer 2025 collection is all about Vaquera essentials – black bubble miniskirt with built-in bike shorts, bullet-bra tops and jersey tees with logos – with a provocateur twist. The XXL faux-fur coat is a joyous delight, just like the puffy ball-skirt in a kitschy, vintage-y chain print, styled with a monumental cloud-shaped. But there’s nothing whimsy about Vaquera, even their eveningwear as the New York-based duo styles it with over-sized rugby shirts and well-worn trainers.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Currency. Vaquera AW24

February 27, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s quite ironic that Vaquera, a formerly New York-based brand with the best humor in this industry, opens Paris Fashion Week. It’s like a pill for the overdose of snobbishness that will avalanche on us throughout these ten, long days. Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee are candid about the harsh reality of being designers in 2024. Through their clothes, they manage to communicate these oh-so-not-fashion, yet relatable on human level, dilemmas. The time crunch between seasons, lack of days off, their bank accounts. What really ticked them off this season, they said, is how much they found themselves caring about money. “Fashion these days is dominated by the crudest form of currency,” DiCaprio said. “We felt like in the past, artistic merit, a vision, and being punk was a bit more of a powerful currency.” And so, in a punk move, they developed an American currency print and graffiti’d Andrew Jackson’s eyes or painted over his face with hearts, and stamped the word FAKE over the White House. And then they used it for a matching button-down and tie, the cummerbund on a loose-fitting pair of trousers, and the three-dimensional rosette bodice on a cocktail dress. Toying with another currency – sex – there were cone bra tops and cone bra-printed t-shirts, titty twister tees à la their icon Vivienne Westwood. DiCaprio and Taubensee aren’t naive enough to think that (real) fashion is an artistic pursuit, but they aren’t cynical enough to believe that it’s all about dollars and cents, either. They would like a day off, but then again, they wouldn’t change it. “I’m grateful for where we are,” DiCaprio said.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Big Chic Energy. Vaquera SS24

September 26, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee opened Paris Fashion Week with a bang, delivering big chic energy with their Vaquera fashion show. The designers emerged for their bows in matching sunglasses, big eye-obscuring shields of the kind worn by A-list celebrities. They said their collection was a consideration of the ways in which stars (and the rest of us) negotiate lives mediated by a 24/7 barrage of cameras. Do you want to be seen or do you want to hide? Is there a difference in a world where everyone is wielding an iPhone? The collection had a couple of gritty Margiela references, especially all the faux fur elements and XXL silhouettes, but in case of Vaquera, it’s never about knocking off, but revisiting their fashion gurus. After opening with a gold fishnet catsuit, the breasts outlined like bullseyes, many of the “normal” looks that followed were split down the back, exposing bra straps and panties. Other looks used underwear as decoration. The pink satin briefs fixed to the front of an otherwise conventional skirt might not have registered as all that outré on the runway, but on the street it’d be a different story. Standing up along the runway, like fans crowding a police barricade at a red carpet or outside a fashion show, the crowd hooted and hollered in appreciation. There aren’t many collections in Paris that deliver Vaquera’s kind of edgy fun. Hopefully, some bold starlet will wear Vaquera’s bleached denim ball gown.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Runaway Bride. Vaquera AW23

February 28, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Backstage at their Vaquera fashion show on the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee were talking about dreams and nightmares, and how they can become interchangeable as time goes by. “We’re excited about selling commercial things,” DiCaprio said. “But I think this season we weren’t afraid to make things that weren’t necessarily for sales, and to say that that is an integral part of our brand.” Take the fun silvery sequin dresses or the various iterations of the wedding dress. I mean, wearing Vaquera on that special day is quite a statement. Other non-commercial garments were the jeans studded with blunt-ended nails which reportedly weigh a couple of kilograms. Mixed in amongst those punkish pants were more readily wearable pieces in the form of army sweaters and nylon cargos, and a faded black leather peacoat and pants. In the early New York days of Vaquera, back when the brand had a more conceptual direction, they designed polo dresses with pointillist renderings of their designer heroes, Vivienne Westwood among them. She was present in their latest show via an updated version of her infamous “tit top” with twisted and tucked “nipple” details. She’s the proof that you can mix business and non-conformity.