ESSENTIALS x Fear of God

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Metamorphosis at Romina Montserrat FW24

February 12, 2024

On Saturday night, Romina Montserrat revealed her second collection, her big New York debut, so it made sense that the designer brought together a band of friendly faces for the presentation titled "After Nature". Models assembled for an audience in a Hester Street basement surrounding and strewn atop a single table in the middle of the room. This collection felt like a significant departure from most of Romina’s past work. Her signature was evident — big hair, origamic patterning, and sex appeal — but this season’s models wore only black in place of metallics and neons, and some featured much more coverage than what a Romina customer might be used to. Abby Bencie, who styled the show, described it as being inspired by the fantasy of Victorian women who are turning into and also are wanting to be bugs. The collection goes from super covered up, almost cocoon-like butterfly chrysalis, to getting more naked. We caught up with her during the show to debrief her first time lead-styling for a runway presentation.

By Kaia Carioli
Photography by Kelli McGuire

I hate being asked any version of this question, but tell me about your style.

As I’m getting older in my career, I'm learning that all of my work has a sexy undertone to it, which at first was not intentional at all, but has kind of become my brand in a way. It’s funny because I always was this super tomboy growing up, and now, even if it’s menswear or something it still has a sexy undertone. And I think that's why me and Romina mesh so well, because I think the Romina girl is sexy.

When you’re dressing models, and clients… is that how you dress yourself?

Yes and no… I think there are undertones of my personal style in my work but it depends what the shoot is for. I guess there’s always a bit of me in it, and I hope the viewer starts to see that, but it’s not all about me! I wish it was!

This is your first time styling a runway presentation! How do you find your role as a stylist changes when working on an in-person presentation as opposed to, say, an editorial?

With editorial, you can obviously fake so much, especially when you know the specific angle it’s being shot from. And this needs to be 360, and livable, and movable – the models need to be able to walk around and move in it. It can’t just be like a static photo.

How did you meet Romina?

We met through one of the models, Born… she was like “this designer keeps hitting me up and wants to hang out” and I was like “tell her to come out!” and we went bowling one night, and have been close ever since. I think it’s so nice that we have a friendship first…I’ve been looking to work with my friends more.

That’s where the magic happens!

The best work happens when you’re working with your friends. I think we understand each other and both appreciate each other's’ eye and vision.

But this is the first time you two have collaborated?

Yes… we have been in talks of collaborating on a collection together, so she invited me to come on board and do the show with her. It was actually supposed to be a more Ready-to-Wear collection, but the direction changed to more of a couture collection. So hopefully in the future we will be working together on a Ready to Wear line.

How long have you guys been working on this collection?

Like two weeks! And that was when I started casting and talking about looks… we were really inspired by the girls. We definitely had looks we wanted on them, but they really inspired the way in which it all unfolded, the hair, et cetera.

Romina works with very architectural shapes, and as a stylist it seems like you could either lean into the distortion of the body and the chaos of it all, or you could take a more minimalistic approach to styling and let the shapes speak for themselves. Where do you think you landed with this collection?

I think it’s a mix. The shapes and styling have obviously been inspired by the womanly figure, and also the shapes of bugs. You can see on Born’s look, she has a huge hump on her butt like a bug. Obviously her clothes are so structured and her origami is insane when it’s molded on the body, but it has to be a mix of both since the collection progresses from covered up to undressing.

As a stylist a lot of the time you’re character-building…who do you think the Romina girl is?

Well, this collection is interesting because if you look at Romina’s brand as a whole, it’s super colorful and metallic. Even when she first showed me the collection I was like “woah… it’s all black”. It’s something that she hasn’t really done before but I think it’s been inspired by the Romina New York girl that wants to wear all black and be sexy. I think she’s obviously sexy and confident…. I don’t want to say ‘a boss bitch’ but you know, she’s in charge!

There’s a lot of confidence in the clothes.

Yes, you have to have confidence to wear her clothes.

Are you a Romina girl? Do you wear Romina’s clothes?

I’m a Romina girl! I’ve borrowed pieces from her before, but I actually just bought my first Romina piece and it’s the classic cocoon hood. I love it, I wore it for New Years and it was amazing.

Fashion

"Bad to the Bone": Dauphinette FW24

Dauphinette was founded in 2018 as “The Happiest Brand on Earth” and longtime followers will remember the pressed flowers and bright prints that marked early collections. While bright colorways and a tendency toward the whimsical were still an important mainstay of this collection, the brand marked a departure from the light and airy, to the deep and exploratory.

“I’m a practicing vegetarian in a ferociously carnal state of mind,” Cheng detailed in show notes. In a world that is certainly far from flowery and light, Dauphinette is answering audiences’ yearning for work that is rawly original, and which communicates daring assertions on how life can be lived.

Upcycling was the unspoken extra guest in the room, with a list of upcycled materials that reads like a menagerie itself, including lambskin leather, cow leather, goat fur, shark teeth, and coque feathers alongside use of reclaimed materials such as wool, cashmere, mohair, and kimono silks.

A standout look was a dress composed completely of neck ties, while a kindred dress was draped in a meadow’s worth of vintage millinery flowers and glass beads. A few handbags were created from vintage volleyballs and basketballs – an ode to “The Happiest Brand’s” more playful origins, perhaps.

Hosted at the historic landmark of St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery, the show presented the latest in a long legacy of arts activations at the site, from experimental film screenings and avant-garde theater in the '60s, up to today’s weekly organizing around The Poetry Project. As the rat race of the East Village – honking cars, tourist excursions, loud bar music – whirred along outside the church, Dauphinette was building a next-generation animal kingdom in its new offerings, ready to be unleashed into the world.

Fashion

At SF1oG, Poise and Disruption Break New Ground

February 11, 2024

You have to give Rosa Marga Dahl credit. Since launching SF1oG, her collections have been a platform for a certain brand of downtown-esque style — that tough-but-tailored, neutral-centric look that has long made for the uniform of mid to lower Berlin. For this season’s outing, however, Dahl and her team took the opportunity to look further afield and pay homage to a different kind of style. Playful, soft and nostalgic were the brand’s terms of art for the look here, which emphasized oversized, structured proportions and sports-inspired functionality. The references were mature, and far from sophomore; that said, the same could be said of only a handful of designers who showed over at Berlin Fashion Week. But what makes Dahl one worthy of note is the mix of emotive sensibility and crisp functionality, which her vision harmonized for Fall 2024. “There’s always a need to have nostalgic touchpoints in my collections,” Dahl opined in a backstage interview. “This season, I felt the urge to create a lineup about school, because it takes such a huge place in building who you actually are as a creative. What I can also add, references wise, is that I didn’t want to limit my research to our generation, but also past ones like my team and everyone I know; I searched deeply into a wealth of old photos from my parents going to school, so it was a study of past and present tales.”

By Chidozie Obasi
Photography by James Cochrane

At any rate, plenty of the pieces had appeal, particularly the knitwear and the skirt-pant combo done in neutral shades and earthy tones, which added a preppy throughline to the brand’s style lexicon. “For the first time ever, we developed an arsenal of knitwear!” exclaimed Dahl, expanding on the usage of materials from 1800 and 1900, which are the very first groundings for anything she studies on a visual scale. Another caveat was the palette. “There’s color, so much color!” she then said, most of which didn’t come as strident as some of her creative counterparts who were present in Berlin. Elsewhere, volume looked particularly good, as did the maxi-shaped fastenings emblazoned across outerwear numbers and oversized toppers.

Dahl’s vision of soft functionality wasn’t authentic, but for the SF10G customer it ought to prove convincing: and at the end of the day, that is the point. There were lots of individually appealing pieces that juxtaposed sports-like crispness with casual tailoring, serving up a “severe nonchalance” to the designer’s lane. “To me, this collection feels like a personal growth,” concluded Dahl. “I always want to go further, and breaking new ground across the realm of functional wear is forever a must.” All in all, though, this made for a fascinating — and perhaps even risk-taking — effort, which was pleasing to see.