Elena Velez’s Wasteland Heroines

February 16, 2023

Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and focused on “romanticized abstractions of Middle America”, designer Elena Velez continues to examine American subcultures through favored archetypes of “wasteland heroines” from the Midwest over the typical and tired depiction of “the glamorous American woman." For Elena Velez’s latest fashion show this week, titled “YR003: HOWS MY DRIVING?,” the 2022’s Emerging Designer of the Year Award winner referenced “agrarian brutalism, puritanical cults, and disorderly anabaptist youths."

Elena held the show around the corner from her studio in Greenpoint, bringing the fashion set from the stereotypical venues often visited during fashion week. Refreshingly anti-traditional, Elena had Tei Shi, Eartheater, Siiickbrain and Mia Carucci walk the runway. Transforming the usual runway into performance art through theatrical, emotive model walks, and generally making bold, hyper-stylized statements with her shows, Elena brings something interesting and meaningful to NYFW and the CDFA — dismissing elitism and perfectionism, and making room for what else exists outside coastal, major metropolitan life.

Text by Audry Hiaoui
Photos by Matthew Weinberger

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Laura Andraschko SS25

June 12, 2024

At London Fashion Week earlier this week, creative director Laura Andraschko unveiled her latest collection, an overtly political presentation, featuring on-the-nose critiques of the UK upper class’ culture and attitudes.

Andraschko, whose work is typically hedonistic in nature, has taken a left turn for the SS25 collection. The excess and ignorance of the often conservative upper class woman is mocked mercilessly. Faux country club pieces are embroidered with phrases like “Entitled Cunt”, offering unabashed, humorous criticism of elites in line with the trend found in recent films The Menu and Triangle of Sadness.

To frame her theatrical show of ridicule, Andraschko chose horse stables in West London as her location, a perfect encapsulation of the bullshit behind the shiny artifice of the lifestyle Britain's elites have chosen for themselves. The designer isn’t portraying herself as a hater through-and-through, though, as elements of the collection display a deep seeded love for aspects of British culture and fashion. Equestrian wear is included, along with pieces invoking UK country club’s and upper class business wear.

Some pieces evoke the well-known Bullingdon Club, which counts Prime Ministers such as notorious right-wing buffoon Boris Johnson and conservative clown David Cameron as it’s former members. Although the collection s a scathing critique of the rich, it’s also tinged with hope, paving an absurd path forward in the arts, a much needed reprieve in a time of ever-increasing inequality.