Photograph by Robi Rodriguez. Styled by Jason Rider
As high fashion becomes an increasingly commercial business, a group of rebellious young designers has emerged, challenging the unwritten codes of design, from gender stereotypes to what’s even considered clothing.
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Last week, the Brooklyn Museum opened “The Rise of Sneaker Culture,” a sweeping exhibition that includes 150 pairs of sneakers — from 1920s Keds to Nike’s first pair of Air Jordans. Last night, in honor of the show, the museum hosted an evening of revelry: a sneaker drive thrown by Heeling Soles
and a dance battle, capped off with one big party. The photographer Amy Lombard captured the scene, which included a set from DJ collective I Love Vinyl, a choreographed dance and
many, many pairs of shoes.
“The Rise of Sneaker Culture” is on view July 10-Oct. 4 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, brooklynmuseum.org.
From left: Looks from Jan-Jan Van Essche's Project #3 collection, available July 18 at Dover Street Market New York; the designer.Credit Pietro Celestina
“The thing that I really love to put in my clothes is a feeling of being at ease – I don’t like the obstruction of too many details and hard shapes,” says the Belgian designer Jan-Jan Van Essche of
his eponymous line of beautifully crafted, understated men’s wear – which includes everything from supersoft marled blazers to linen-blend drawstring trousers. “I hope my designs give a physical feeling
of freedom. We have our own shop in Antwerp, and I notice that when people wear the clothes for the first time, they start moving and almost dancing in front of the mirror.”
This Saturday, Van Essche makes his latest tiptoe into New York, putting his dance-inducing clothes into a new season installation at Dover Street Market New York. (His line
is already carried by Opening Ceremony, and will soon land at ODD, too.) A designer who was born, bred and trained in Antwerp, Van Essche himself is a good fit for the visionary Dover Street Market: He’s a confident
nonconformist. Right now his brand is about to launch Project #3; in spring 2016 you’ll be able to buy Collection #6. If this terminology sounds unfamiliar, it’s because Van Essche has developed his own seasonal
framework. The annual Collections are launched every spring; as he sees them, they’re about building a comprehensive wardrobe of layers. The annual Projects, on the other hand – launched every fall –
are inspired by particular techniques. The first, in 2013, centered around patchwork, the second around Sakiori hand-weaving, and the third – around which his DSM installation will be built – will focus on
rope and yarn-weaving. “With each Project, I focus on one detail or one way of working,” he says. “In my head it’s a totally different way of designing.”
Photo
Looks from Jan-Jan Van Essche's Collection #6 (Spring/Summer 2016).Credit Pietro Celestina
One gets the sense that Van Essche is a designer who approaches his craft as a never-ending study, but you don’t have to be seeking an intellectual experience to get hooked on the clothes. “I want the wearer to
fall in love with the pieces they buy,” he concludes. “They don’t really need to know the backstory.” Van Essche wants men wearing his clothes to feel the way women feel in summer dresses: light
and unburdened. “I experienced that myself when I made my first jumpsuit: You have one piece, one action and you’re done,” he says. “So I try to design things that give this feeling, but look
fit for the city.”
Jan-Jan Van Essche’s Project #3 launches in-store on July 18 at Dover Street Market New York, 160 Lexington Avenue, newyork.doverstreetmarket.com.
This morning George Lewis Jr., better known as the chief creative force behind the musical act Twin Shadow, walked in Public School's spring/summer 2016 presentation. (It was the first time Lewis Jr., who helped inspire the designers' first collection and once appeared in a fashion film for the brand, walked in a fashion show).Credit Firstview
For George Lewis Jr., better known as the chief creative force behind the musical act Twin Shadow, playing a sold-out show in front of thousands is one thing — but modeling clothes,
well, that’s a whole different story. “I’m more uncomfortable with the idea, now more than ever,” Lewis says. “I know pretty much nothing about what actual modeling is.” Lewis may
feel more at home on the stage than the runway, but that hasn’t stopped the dapper rock star from collaborating with the designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne on their fashion label Public School. Twin Shadow’s
latest partnership with the brand, which debuted this morning at New York Fashion Week: Men’s for the spring/summer 2016 collection, featured both new music from the artist — and Lewis’s first time
walking in a fashion show.
The partnership itself, though, is far from new. Lewis met Osborne and Chow when he was just coming off his first record, 2009’s alt-pop slow burn “Forget.” “I was still living in Bushwick and just
barely getting my feet on the ground with Twin Shadow,” says Lewis, when his manager informed him that he had helped inspire Public School’s first collection. “I went up to meet the guys and there were
pictures of me all up on a pinboard — I was super weirded out,” he says with a chuckle. (Lewis had thought it was his music, more than his appearance, that had influenced the designers.) Despite the awkward
introduction, the three immediately clicked and soon after, Lewis appeared in a fashion film for the brand. “It’s been ongoing ever since,” Lewis says. Read more…
In honor of the inaugural New York Fashion Week: Men’s, which begins Monday, the photographer Erik Madigan Heck has created a whimsical series around 16 of the designers showing there. His exhibition of explosively colorful
photographs — featuring pieces by John Varvatos, Calvin Klein Collection and Ovadia & Sons — will open at Amazon Fashion’s
studio in Williamsburg on Monday, before it moves to the fashion-week hub at Skylight Clarkson Square later in the week. “I felt I had a responsibility to create a fresh work that really celebrates each designer’s
distinct point of view, regardless of my own personal taste,” says Heck. “In the end, I think that makes the work more interesting — to show whatever detail was most important, even if it’s only
a seam.”
For its first sneaker collection, Adieu — the Parisian shoe company known for its unisex creeper and Chelsea boot styles inspired by the British Teddy-Boy and punk scenes —
looks with nostalgia across the Atlantic: to America in the 1960s, when practically every boy wore PF Flyers. Inspired by that timeless shoe — immortalized in the millennial-favorite 1993 film “The Sandlot,”
about a group of scrappy suburban boys playing baseball in the summer of 1962 — the Adieu Walk Over sneaker toughens up the PF Flyer’s classic shape with a chunkier sole and more pronounced notches.
The hat maker Nick Fouquet's flagship store in Venice, Calif.Credit Ashley Noelle
Los Angeles-based Nick Fouquet is in many ways the ultimate California dude — tall and lanky, with a shaggy blond mane that simply begs to have a hat put on it — but don’t call him a milliner. His approach
to hat making is anything but traditional. “I’ve always wanted to do my own thing,” he says, “and it’s such a niche market and undervalued accessory. To me, hats are the pinnacle of elegance.
I’m not here to reinvent them — but to do it with my twist; not over-the-top or dramatic, like a milliner might.” Read more…
//www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/t-magazine/who-is-marc-jacobs.html.
