Burberry x Opening Ceremony

July 13, 2018

Though brand evolution is an inevitable feature of the fashion world, Burberry could not resist the urge to infuse their latest capsule collection “drop,” in collaboration with Opening Ceremony, with a twinge of nostalgia for the label’s rich aesthetic past.

With an overall vintage feel and streetwear edge, the collection takes a twist on Burberry's classic check with Pride-esqe colors stitched into the fabric of every piece including logo prints, tees and hats.

For the accompanying editorial, OC followed Kiev youth around, starting at a 2pm beach rave and ending the morning after. Having captured the qualities of freedom and youth within the Ukrainian underground rave community, it is this very feature that lends this collection a refreshing breeze of adolescence.

Text by Kennedy Fairfax
Photos by Salvatore Caputo

Fashion

Metrosexuality Is In At Luar

February 15, 2024

On Tuesday night, LUAR took the city by storm with a Fall/Winter '24 show that made it feel as though Fashion Week had peaked a day early. Held at SAA, the girls lined the Bushwick block in their finest slouchy leather jackets and puffer coats, awaiting entry into the venue. This season, Raul Lopez positioned himself as not only a designer but also a cultural anthropologist with a keen eye for boys that like to dress.

With the Fall/Winter '24 collection, Lopez revamped metrosexuality, while steering clear of its dated stigmas. Each piece engaged in a dialogue with history — boldly current, yet hinting at an age when the art of masculine adornment was ornate and even impractical. From hefty-shouldered, shiny leather jackets with an Elizabethan flair to Victorian-inspired brocade trousers cut to accommodate the movement of today’s common city dweller, the collection marries the past’s grandiosity with today’s gender fluidity.

Photography by Morgan Charlton

Lopez also revealed a new seasonless ready-to-wear line with a price point that sits under $500. LUAR BASICS is his attempt to merge "upper class taste and the average person's shopping budget," inspired by a time in his life when clothes that "looked good, and felt good" were inaccessible. Other collaborations also showed up on the runway, from Starface x LUAR to a multi-season partnership with Moose Knuckles. Of the partnership with Starface, Lopez says that what drew him to the brand was its similar commitment to self-expression, and their use of their platform to build bridges between people. Drawing inspiration from vintage styles, Moose Knuckles' fur-adorned puffer jackets and cropped bombers glistened with the same luster as the supple leather trench coats that swept across the runway.

As Lopez continues to redefine what it means to be a disruptor in fashion, it is clear that the designer isn’t just making clothes; he’s creating an ethos, one where cultural transformations and personal identities interlace.

Fashion

Clarks is “Coming Up Roses” with Martine Rose

“Coming Up Roses” takes a padded approach to the silhouettes in the collection, bringing a sense of ostentatious excess and playfulness to seemingly mundane pieces. This approach is precisely why the collection works so well. Clarks, as a house that has perfected its craft over decades — or centuries, for that matter, given its founding in 1825 — provides an incredibly stable foundation as a brand for a creative innovator like Rose to take risks. The collection also benefits from a healthy dose of nostalgia, taking great inspiration from Clarks’ iconic 80s ad campaigns. Rose also reflects on her own nostalgia for the brand and her early adolescent experiences with it, making the collaboration one that is not only incredibly vibrant but also earnestly sentimental.

Rose echoes this sentiment with her personal recollections, adding a layer of sincerity to the mix. She explains, "The collection was about comfort and this overblown feeling of softness and squidginess, so it felt easy and natural to create that feeling around bedding. It’s all about engaging with people, using memory and familiarity as a way of connecting. Clarks is such a familiar household name, it’s been a part of all of our lives so there’s an automatic intimacy that you have by default from Clarks being in your life for so long. Everything from start to finish has been with the broadness of the mainstream in mind."

The collection was about comfort and this overblown feeling of softness and squidginess, so it felt easy and natural to create that feeling around bedding.

Shop the Clarks and Martine Rose “Coming Up Roses” collection here.

Fashion

Wiederhoeft's Mythology

February 15, 2024

Jackson Wiederhoeft is no stranger to theatrics. Some critics have argued that he refuses to let the clothes speak for themselves, using dance and performance to augment the presentation. This season, in his AW24 collection, “Secret Room,” Wiederhoeft silences the naysayers in a display that’s the perfect balance between romantic and eerie. Compared to previous seasons, the presentation aimed to be closer to a traditional runway setting. But, as we’ve seen from his bridal collections, the Wiederhoeft attempt at “traditional” still leaves us some room for excitement.

This wasn’t your mother’s catwalk — in a presentation that was more aligned with salon-style shows, models emerged from a heavy mist and twisted and turned around guests, maintaining eye contact and using subtle ballerina-esque gestures to explore the space and their bodies within it. Sorry Naomi, we know you said to never touch the dress, but quite literally, everyone was “feeling themselves.” And for good reason.

By Izzy Capulong
Photography by Matt Weinberger

In true Wiederhoeft fashion, everything was corseted. Nothing was safe, no waistline left undefined. Even what would normally be considered “men’s” looks, Wiederhoeft cinches in. One of my favorite looks involved a boxy high-waisted trouser with some cheeky sequined handprints placed strategically on the back. Playing with feathers, veils, and giant flowers, Wiederhoeft puts a modern spin on what we imagine would have been worn in the high society of Old New York, paying homage to a decadence seemingly of a bygone era without making attempts to return to it. Wiederhoeft is not looking back.

The final Wiederhoeft look is always a bride — this season was no different — teardrop crystals, shattered pearls, and a dramatic draped train that dragged the fog across the floor. The bride facelessly disappearing into the blue mist created an image reminiscent of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Some people say that he turned around, not because he was foolish or fearful, but because it is in his memory of her where their love is strongest. But the Wiederhoeft bride does not turn to look at us one more time — we see her, moving forward, unrelenting, and not looking back. Wiederhoeft refuses to live only in memory.