Fashion statements
NEW YORK — Four days of New York Fashion Week’s menswear shows previewing spring 2018 collections included Raf Simons’ trip to Chinatown and Barbara Sanchez-Kane’s models with phrases drawn on their faces like mustaches. Here are some highlights from the events earlier this month.
RAINBOOTS, ‘REPLICANTS’ AT RAF SIMONS
It wasn’t raining at the Raf Simons show, but there were umbrellas, chunky rain boots and thunder, too — from subway trains roaring across the Manhattan Bridge overhead.
Guests — including VIPs Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, Christian Slater and A$AP Rocky — stood outdoors in a space that serves as a bustling Chinatown market by day. Chinese lanterns hung overhead. Buckets of water splashed on the ground before the show began made it slick, shiny and, well, wet.
So it wasn’t a great night for suede pumps, but the models had the right footwear. They also carried huge umbrellas, some intentionally broken and some not. As they sashayed down a crowded alleyway, those umbrellas occasionally bumped into onlookers leaning in to take photos. Widebrimmed rain hats came down low over the models’ eyes, with scarves around their necks. Bodies were draped with huge slouchy sweaters and voluminous coats. Not much skin was on display.
While this was the menswear show for Simons’ eponymous label (he’s also creative director for Calvin Klein), some models were women. In any case, they were meant not to be human, but “Replicants.” ‘’Blade Runner” fans know those are androids — stronger and faster than humans. After the show, Simons reflected on how the 1982 Ridley Scott movie influenced his creative vision.
“’Blade Runner’ has been inspiring for many years, and I wondered, ‘Why did I never do something that relates to this movie?’” the Belgian designer mused. “But it had to feel right in the circumstances.” The Replicants’ significance could be applied to fashion itself: “It’s interesting to think about how fashion can be about cloning, either in a good or a bad way. But that’s a longer discussion.” —Jocelyn Noveck
TODD SNYDER DOES THE WORLD
Snyder frequently travels the globe and was considering both his own wanderlust and the diversity of his home base, New York City, for his collection.
His models came in a range of skin tones and wore eclectic spring looks combining stripes, shorts, topcoats, wide trousers and military touches.
“I just felt like with everything that’s going on in the world it was important to be more worldly about the inspiration,” Snyder said in a backstage interview. “I’ve been calling it the melting pot of fashion.”
His models, more Gen Z than millennial, also represented the fashion of freedom, caring little about old-school fashion rules, said Snyder.
There were rustic linens and sporty bomber jackets, athletic looks (some part of a Champion collaboration) and hipster-worthy cropped pants with wide turned-up cuffs. A touch of bohemian was present and stripes were worn loose and easy. Many looks were paired with sturdy military dress shoes. — Leanne Italie
SANCHEZ-KANE GETS EMOTIONAL
With messages like “Haute Couture Barrio” on the back of a deconstructed denim jacket and drawn-on mustaches reading “Moral Panic” and other phrases, Mexican designer Barbara Sanchez-Kane took on her own emotions, questioned family, society and religious roles, and put an edge on the politics of both gender and Mexican-American relations.
And that’s just this season.
With her own written diaries as a guide, always, the 29-year-old who lives in the Yucatan’s Merida put on her first major solo show. Heritage and the emotional chaos of navigating rigid cultural rules when all one wants to do is break out translated into fiery embroidery (courtesy of Mayan craftspeople back home) and bits of wraparound pieces in fabric and metal symbolizing restriction. — Leanne Italie
BODE NEW YORK’S ATTIC TRIP
Emily Adams Bode is a whisperer of vintage textiles, from 1900s mattress covers to del- icate table linens, lush bath towels and monogrammed bedsheets from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
For her latest collection, she was inspired by a trip to the south of France, where she discovered a relative’s “grenier,” or attic. An uncle once lived there, along with his grandmother before him.
“The attic is symbolic of a space of protection, of memories of yesteryear,” said Bode, who launched her Bode New York last July. “As I was in France, I drove around for around two weeks
I grew up antiquing with my mother and my aunts so I think I’ve always been drawn to historical textiles.” EMILY ADAMS BODE
and collected a bunch of antique textiles, so 90 percent of the collection is cut from one-of-akind textiles.”
Best known for her work in vintage quilts, this season — for her third collection — Bode incorporated old tapestries and chintz, the latter for a short-sleeved button-down shirt with a huge leafy tree on the back. White trousers cut from a sheet had a red monogram on one leg matching one on the bed where the model reclined. Bode’s show space was filled with beds for models to pose on.
So why vintage textiles? Bode has sought them since she was a girl in Atlanta.
“A lot of them are labors of love, and to reincorporate that into clothing that is worn every day, it can be cherished again,” she said.
The story of each is important to Bode.
“I grew up antiquing with my mother and my aunts so I think I’ve always been drawn to historical textiles,” she said. — Leanne Italie