Fashion Week has hit New York City again, and big, fancy designers are showing their latest collections for fall/winter 2014. So we went to a few shows to figure out what all the Tumblr goofballs, twinks, and trust-funders will be wearing in autumn. Keep checking back frequently throughout the week for our reviews of the shows at Milk Studios, Lincoln Center, and more.
ROBERT GELLER
The influences behind Robert Geller's collections are always super fascinating. The press releases for his shows are like rabbit holes that have you crawling through obscure Wikipedia pages and loading up your Amazon shopping cart with very rare goodies. This time around, however, the genesis for Robert's fall 2014 looks lie with a rock star we're all pretty familiar with: David Bowie. It's not super surprising that Robert would find a muse in the Thin White Duke. David has long been a bastion of style (just check out the feature we did this month on Kansai Yamamoto, the designer behind many of David's iconic looks). Not to mention, David's a master at walking the thin line between being tough and elegant, just like Robert's eponymous brand. Surprisingly, Robert opted to mine one of David's lesser-known personae. Instead of aping low-hanging fruit like Ziggy Stardust, Robert looked to the big and boxy suits David wore in The Man Who Fell to Earth as a springboard for his collection. Robert's models took to the runway in everything from neoprene overcoats and tall military caps to Chelsea boots and elongated tops. In the context of his previous work, it wasn't revelatory. Everything from the warm hues of purple to the layered silhouettes was well within his wheelhouse and felt very familiar to me. Even so, it was refined to the point that his looks are becoming so pure and distinctive they're bordering on the iconic.
—By Wilbert L. Cooper
MARA HOFFMAN
The jungle-drum music and the "exotic" prints on the clothes made it apparent that Mara Hoffman was channeling the Dark Continent with her latest collection, which is weird because she's never even been there before. Though I'm usually very suspicious of cultural reappropriation by old white people, I was at least pleased to see that Mara had the Rainbow Coalition do her casting. Models of all different races and complexions were clad in flowy dresses that were decorated in vibrantly colored sequins and patterns. There were definitely some great looks, and the styling of dark-skinned models in white was especially striking. But at the end of the day, this stuff is what a WASPy mom would wear to an Invisible Children fundraising event.
—By Wilbert L. Cooper
OSTWALD HELGASON
The kind of audience a brand attracts is a perfect indicator of what its show will be like. Because Ostwald Helgason's show ran a solid half hour late, I was able to take my time and really reflect on the dweebs who were attending the London-based brand's show. One Soho goober in particular stood out to me. He was 30-going-on-40, wearing dress shoes and a Thrasher snapback hooked around his belt loop. Not to mention, he had a worn-out skateboard in his hands. It was clear that in honor of fashion week, he opted to sport his "skater look."
Ostwald Helgason's designs this season had the same laborious poser vibe as that guy, but instead of overpriced skating gear, it was high(er)-end concert attire. These clothes were meant to be worn on dinner dates by tepid, boring women. Halfway through the show, they changed the music from quirky and coy to the glitchy stuff that frat dudes OD to at EDM festivals. All of a sudden, even the models looked lost, wearing failed outfits varying from cherry-blossom polo dresses to peel-away banana graphic creations. It was an incongruent collection that felt aggressively mediocre. Middle-of-the-road designs like this don't warrant a runway show.
—By Jesse Miller-Gordon
CALLA
Placed alongside three other presentations on the eighth floor of Milk Studios, Calla brought a fun, casual energy. While some other rooms had sweaty, uncomfortable models, Calla's girls were situated in a PE roll-call formation with college-coffee-shop favorites like Dolly Parton and Blood Orange playing in the background. The looks were playful, ranging from a comfy sweat suit worn with a furry coat that boasted the plaid of a Chinatown tote bag to an embroidered she-suit the color of a 50s champagne Cadillac. Elsewhere, there were the kinds of bold patterns and pleated skirts that make me fall in love with girls and expect unreasonable things. No new ground was broken, but that wasn't really the point, was it?
—By Jesse Miller-Gordon
DEGEN
It should be a rule next fashion week that all designers be prohibited from boring the hell out of us with their awkward early-morning presentations—unless that designer is Lindsay Degen. Lindsay has held a special place in our hearts ever since she knit a pair of boobs on a sweater and some pubic hair on a pair of underwear in one of her previous collections. She’s a genuine weirdo who thinks outside the box and could care less about what everyone else thinks is cool, because whatever she thinks is cool is COOL and everyone else can go die.
She even has a sneaky way of making you like things you thought were the worst. Take Crocs, for example: There aren’t enough explicitly horrible words to describe how they make me feel. The mere glimpse of a nasty foot in Crocs causes my eyeballs to vibrate inside their sockets, and I suddenly get the urge to projectile-vomit onto every surface around me. Nevertheless, when I saw the stomach-churning footwear as rainbow-colored LED platform shoes in her new collection, I had to take a step back and close my eyes. I stood in the middle of the room like a freak for a good minute, clenching my fists in my pocket until the feeling finally passed. The neon lights, the cropped sweaters, the colorful shorts and hoodies, and the strange tribal drumming in the room resonated inside my chest. I stood there not sure if I was about to have a panic attack. I'd never been at a rave that early in the morning, but I think I could get used to it. MATCH POINT: DEGEN!
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
PETER SOM
If you’re the type of fashionable "it" girl who buys 60s French-pop vinyl (à la France Gall) or you have some unhealthy obsession with Edie Sedgwick (i.e., you have unresolved daddy issues), then Peter Som is for you. This season, Peter did what a lot of designers do at some point in their careers, which is rip off styles from the 60s and 70s and try to sell them to a new audience. I consider this to be a total cop-out because, most of the time, they're basically carbon copies of $5 bin finds that I can score secondhand (and that's mainly because the idiots who price them think Paco Rabanne is a Latino celebrity who designed a collection sold at Kmart). There isn’t anything too exciting or new about Peter’s autumn line, which consists of A-line skirts, leopard-print jackets, and dresses in various bright warm tones. But if you buy any of these pieces, at least you wont have to worry about contracting some fucked-up, skin-eating thrift-store disease. That's something, right?
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
DION LEE
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When I was a little preteen, one of life's rarefied moments was getting inside of a girl's bedroom—not to do anything physical in particular; just making it out of the family room and up the damn stairs was prize enough. This kind of thing only happened during a secret rendezvous under the cover of night or when a girl's parents were out of town and she had caught a wild streak. Because getting into a girl's bedroom was such a rare occurrence, the bedroom of a woman took on a kind of mythical quality in my mind. When I was crushing on a girl, I'd daydream endlessly about what her room would look like. There is still something awe-inspiring to me about femininity expressed in such a personal space, where everything is super-ornate and vibrantly colored and all the little pieces have their own place. Dion Lee's latest collection looked like something straight out of the walk-in closet in one of the imagined bedrooms of a long-lost boyhood crush of mine. There were soft pinks and creams and bold blues. Everything felt effortlessly flowy and sexy in a reserved sort of way. Sure, I caught a few glimpses of some nice model nips and butt cracks, but it wasn't a smack-you-in-the-face-withsex kind of affair. Instead, it felt elegant and got my imagination running away again, high off the power and mystery of beautiful women and their fancy things.
—By Wilbert L. Cooper
ØDD
ØDD was the first show I attended at NYFW, so I was hoping for some freaky shit to pop off to get my fashion week started on the right foot. The invitation talked a lot about juxtapositions and sound technology, so I was ready to have my mind blown. After entering the room and being bummed out that it was just another catwalk and not some trippy experiential environment, I noticed a man shadily standing in the corner of the room. Or was he a lady? When he took a seat in front of me, I realized it was Elliott Sailors, the woman who now models as a man. I saw that her right hand was glowing blue thanks to a large ring she was wearing. When she stood up and marched down the runway, she moved her hand in front of her body like a sorcerer, which I guess was controlling the music and the projections and maybe my mind. I was entranced. But not every model was lucky enough to have a piece of mind-melting jewelry, so I was able to leave my trance long enough to see the actual clothing of the collection, which was very dark and futuristic and awesome.
—By Erica Euse
GENERAL IDEA
Being John Malkovich is an old Spike Jonze movie in which John Cusack has the power to enter actor John Malkovich's mind for 15 minutes at a time. Whenever I see a collection by designer Bumsuk Choi, I wonder whether he's doing that to me—entering my brain through a portal on the seventh-and-a-half floor of a Korean office building and taking all the fashion shit that I like and desperately want and incorporating it into his awesome line. I could be totally content wearing only General Idea's latest collection for the rest of 2014, with its black-heavy color scheme, tight tough-guy leather pants, tops with zippers in lots of strange places, and man skirts. Bumsuk, if you are inside my head right now, hook a brother up with some runway samples for free-.99, my guy.
—By Wilbert L. Cooper
TIMO WEILAND
Timo Weiland is one of the few young designers who can successfully create a full and solid assortment of looks for both men and women. Instead of referencing past decades for his menswear line, this season he decided to create a collection inspired by the now—the outfits he sees on the streets of New York every single day. So for fall, he basically re-created all the classic staples you have in your closet but made every piece a million times better, to the point that you now hate everything you own. In fact, you're so annoyed that haphazardly tossing a still-lit cigarette butt into a trash bin that "accidentally" starts a fire and destroys all of your shitty, outdated wardrobe—so you have to go out and buy all of Timo's new gear with the insurance check—doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world.
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
CHROMAT
I praise individualism, and this show was jam-packed with eclectic weirdos. (My favorite was the guy sitting across from me in an all-gold, metallic striped suit with rainbow-colored balls glued to his hat.) Once the typical electronic tunes started echoing in the Standard's presentation hall, the first few girls stepped out wearing the usual Chromat looks—cutout dresses, lingerie, and pentagram designs—which is always appealing. But it wasn't until a model sporting a full-metal bustier walked out that I knew this collection was different. I even found myself drooling over the shiny metal baby-doll dress that came after (even though it probably weighed more than the girl who was wearing it). And when the lights dimmed to reveal an ethereal leather mask and harness complete with blue LEDs, I knew I was in heaven.
—By Miyako Bellizzi
KATIE GALLAGHER
Katie Gallagher is my kind of gal. Season after season, her dark, edgy designs never fail to get my adrenaline pumping. I don't know her personally. But I'd like to think she's the sort of girl I held séances with when I went through my shitty rebellious "I hate everything!" phase. You know, the teenage years when you only wore black, watched The Craft once a week, bought dog collars from Hot Topic, and found your parents leaving "How to Talk to Your Teen" pamphlets throughout the house because they didn't know how to deal with your crazy-ass mood swings. While it would be unfair to simply label Katie's newest collection as an homage to some 90s cult chick flick, we have to say that if this was the inspiration behind her latest designs, she did a really good job at breathing new life into a concept that several designers have failed to capture.
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
VFILES
ASSK (far left)
After teetering on the edge of obscurity with last season’s clumsy showcase, VFiles was in a tough spot—how do you appeal to blasé internet kids without ostracizing the people who take fashion kind of seriously? And vice versa? It’s the burning question, and after a 45-minute delay, things weren’t looking good. Luckily, the two Aussie expats behind Paris-based ASSK quelled the non-believers. The looks—urban knitwear, quilted bombers, lush coats that doubled up as sleeping bags, Realtree print garments sprinkled with SIM cards and Rx bottles—were so on point that they’d be filed right in the G-spot of a form-meets-function Venn diagram.
—By Bobby Viteri
MELITTA BAUMEISTER (middle)
The minute Melitta Baumeister’s first look strolled down the runway, I immediately knew she was German. No other country's inhabitants can ever cut the hell out of a sweater and send it frayed down a runway quite like the Germans can. The Parson's graduate showcased a series of designs inspired by our cultural obsession with digital technology. It was a clean collection, minus all the pieces that were purposely made to look unfinished. In many ways it was reminiscent of old Martin Margiela and Raf Simons designs, with weird bananas attached to some of the model's chests. I'm not sure how those pieces really supported her whole "digital" concept, because all they did was make me think of Donkey Kong—if he were forced to live on an interstellar space station inhabited by some jacked up dystopian society. Scratch that. Living out the rest of my days in eternal sadness while wearing whatever this "stuff" is supposed to be seems pretty cool to me right now.
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
HYEIN SEO (far right)
One of the biggest pet peeves is the use of typeface on clothing. Any word that's supposed to evoke some sort of emotion from you—especially the word fear—is just stupid. So Hyein Seo's decision to display it prominently on every garment just annoyed me. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good punk look when it's executed properly, but this was a far cry from punk. It was as far from punk as punk could be. You might as well have used the word "punk" instead. It's really sad because the structural design of each individual piece was great. Had she just second-guessed the deal-breaker, the collection would have been a hit. Sorry, Hyein; tripping at the finish line is the worst look of all.
—By Miyako Bellizzi
WILDFOX
At the risk of sounding like a total asshole, I've got to say that the Wildfox show was very "LA." We like Wildfox and Kimberley Gordon's girly designs, but there was something about the show that we couldn't shake. The scent of self-tanner and Clinique Happy clung to the air in such a way that I couldn't help having acid flashbacks to my awkward days in high school. I was reminded of the way the school common room smelled when the popular crew rolled through the hallways post–Central Park smoke break. As the models began strolling down the runway in a collection that was inspired by Pride and Prejudice, I began to feel nostalgic. The rosy-cheeked, beanie-wearing, slouchy boho-chic models reminded me of the kind of young girl I secretly admired, even though she tortured the hell out of me—the carefree, "I woke up like this" perfect 10 who had a cool boyfriend, could wear all of his clothing, not brush her hair, and still warrant boners from all of the guys after PE. A warmth came over me, one I'd never experienced before; it was if I had finally gotten some kind of closure I'd always needed.
But in an instant my newfound inner peace was shattered into a million pieces as the soft baby-like words I frequently hear in my nightmares began to play: "My heart will never feel / Will never see / Will never know...." It was Grimes, the same annoying track that has been plaguing fashion weeks all around the world for the last two years. Ugh. Coincidentally, a sweatshirt displaying the phrase "I Need a Drink" came down the catwalk as the haunting song faded into obscurity. At least at that very moment I could finally relate to my surroundings, and I was no longer afraid.
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
ORLEY
Orley's fall/winter 2014 collection is basically what I imagine Holden Caulfield's boarding-school cohorts would have worn in The Catcher in the Rye on their weekends at home in New York City. It's the perfect collection for any Godard-obsessed intro-to-film twit—you know, the same guy who subscribes to the Paris Review and walks around carrying a pretentious book under his arm, along with a rolled-up newspaper with the New York Times label facing out so everyone can see just how well-read he is. This guy also doesn't own a single pair of white socks, still wears Dior's Eau Sauvage, and carries a monogrammed cigarette case full of pencil-thin perfectly hand-rolled cigs in his shirt breast pocket. This guy is the absolute worst. And not because of his deep connection to a period in time 20 years prior to his birth, but because of his unfailing commitment. Also, your girlfriend is probably going to leave you for him, and for very good reason.
—By Annette Lamothe-Ramos
KYE
After feeling pretty terrible all day, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a sweltering room with DJs blasting Outkast remixes for 30 minutes, while jerks obnoxiously snapped runway photos with their massive iPads. But once the models came out wearing a face full of baby oil, I felt a lot better, because at least there were others who knew how I felt—sweaty and ready to die.
Like most shows this season, androgynous looks were a central theme. KYE has a unique ability to create versatile pieces that both sexes can wear. By using expensive leathers, mesh, and this weird Astro-fur material, they really upped the loungewear game. All the looks seemed like they came straight out of a 90s Missy Elliot music video. I was especially feeling the XL chain-cable motif that was embroidered on most of the garments. It's like KYE designed my ideal collection: comfy, non-descript fits that come in black, white, and red. Ideal for eating, sleeping, sweating, fucking, and dying.
—By Miyako Bellizzi