Looking at this month’s Council of Fashion Designers of America schedule for New York Fashion Week, it was hard not to notice that it seemed a bit sparse. Ending three days ago on the 11th, the presentations included venerable brands like Coach and Michael Kors as well as newer labels like Collina Strada and Luar. Proenza Schouler, the most New York of New York houses (and arguably the best), has been showing in Paris for the past several years. Laura and Kate Mulleavy of California’s Rodarte have also shown in Paris, Los Angeles, or solely online; several American designers who showed this month in their own country (Christopher John Rogers, Altuzarra) did so after varied hiatuses.
It is courageous for an emerging or even an established house to resist the pressures of the fashion system. As auxiliary collections like Pre-Spring, Pre-Fall, Resort and Cruise have proliferated and financial support for independent designers is ever more scarce, some brands are forgoing fashion week completely or choosing to show at specific, intentional times (one of the most important young creators today, Emily Adams Bode Aujla, “has long preferred to participate in fashion week only when she has something big to say”).
Legendary designer Raf Simons spoke of an impending sense of acceleration ten years ago in System Magazine. “When you do six shows a year, there’s not enough time for the whole process,” he noted. “Technically, yes — the people who make the samples, do the stitching, they can do it. But you have no incubation time for ideas, and incubation time is very important.”
“I’m questioning a lot. I feel a lot of people are questioning,” he said that same year before his last show as creative director of Dior. “We have a lot of conversation about it: where is it going? It’s not only the clothes. It’s the clothes, it’s everything, the Internet.”
It turns out that making a different choice was a success for Bode Aujla and her eponymous label. In a show that happened two nights before the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Bode presented an aesthetic vision that wisely went toward the mainstream of American culture instead of against it (which is more than can be said for many subcultural New York projects, whose wan androgyny seems destined to remain forever niche). For once, runway models were the picture of health, as football stars CeeDee Lamb, Ja’Marr Chase, and Alvin Kamara wore looks from the house’s Rec. line. And there was color: resplendent, rich, and reflective of nature. It was a world away from the rehashed, ever-minimalist office fare most legacy labels offered in New York.
The most significant show in the City this spring was likely Eckhaus Latta. A small cast of models striding across a wooden floor in Tribeca was accompanied by a striking note from the brand’s publicist Kaitlin Phillips, who called the collection “sanity first.” “Money is what people are thinking about these days,” she wrote, “that and precarity and scarcity … it’s going to make a lot of sense to you.” One half of the pairing, Mike Eckhaus, characterized the offering as “anti-fantasy.”
Dazed Digital deemed it simple clothing for people in real life — “not the never-ending cycle of the online content churn.” In keeping with the conceptual focus on practicality and finances, the collection featured Eckhaus Latta’s first foray into handbags. “People were always asking us when we were going to have a bag — I knew one day we would figure it out,” Eckhaus told Vogue several months ago, already a decade and a half into the existence of the fashion house. Acknowledging that the creation of such items requires “so many resources,” Zoe Latta explained that the idea came from a dream she had. In her nighttime reverie, she saw first the functionality of the snaps surrounding the bag’s strap and opening, which then enabled the space inside to expand.
A Note on Payments
I have decided to pause them. I have felt a change in heart over the past few weeks, and I need some time to think about how I engage on this platform. The culture of Substack has changed significantly since I started here in May 2021, and I am enormously grateful for all that this platform has given me. I have also recently read some astute critiques of this website that resonated, and I need to mull them over. In short, my thoughts are not fully formulated. There may be times in which I need to write with more irregularity, in which I need to practice greater detachment from the immediate response to my writing. I have an addictive [passionate, obsessive, zealous] personality, and many tech platforms are built to be addictive even for people with normal psyches. One thing I have learned in recovery is to pause when agitated or doubtful. I’m frequently agitated, but seldom doubtful, so in this moment I need to be patient. Thank you for your forbearance. To all those who have generously contributed, you are deeply appreciated. More to come.