After the show, office went backstage to speak to Hillary Taymour about her A/W 2024 collection. Read our conversation below.
Hi Hillary! Congratulations on such a beautiful show.
Thank you, thank you.
What were you the most excited for people to see from this collection?
The feminine strength that we can all have. Pushing the chaos of navigating this world and being able to push through, with this strong sense of the feminine.
Last season, you were meditating on this feeling of, “everything is burning.” This season there seems to have been little bit of a shift emotionally to focus on strength—
It’s still like, how can we get through it? Like, fuck this. We gotta do something. [Laughs] We gotta get it together.
On a personal level, when do you feel the strongest? What has been giving you this feeling of strength over the last six months?
Honestly, I feel strong when I'm surrounded by my team and we all are working together and I'm like, “wow.” Like last night, we're all up at three in the morning going, going, going. I started crying. I was like, “This is so beautiful that we're all just in perfect sync and harmony and pushing through together.”
I love that.
I love my team!
Last season you incorporated the use of AI in a very unorthodox way to design a collection. Moving into this season, was there any lingering influence from having mixed up the process in that way?
We worked with stable diffusion to create that video [hanging above the runway]. I was like, this block is chaotic, people's interpretation was chaotic. So I just wanted to create the most chaotic thing possible for your viewing pleasure.
And I did enjoy viewing it!
Thank you, I’m glad. I think it’s still playing, you can watch it as you walk out.
Where did the concept for “stronger” come from? Was there a specific moment for you?
It came from women dressing women. Women dressing women.
It’s been about 15 years now since you started Collina in college—
Way to age me!
I’m sorry! But, I mean, you know, in that time, a lot of growth and maturing happens. How do you feel like the Collina woman has evolved or matured over the years since you started?
I feel like it just gets more and more confident. And like, I get more and more like myself. I don't get scared to go that extra way. I don't need to play favorites, I don’t need to play the game, I can just be myself.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Thank you!
When you attend a show these days, so much of it feels the same. There was something about this presentation that made people curious. We had no idea what we were walking into — what part did you play in having that come to life?
We are a small group of creatives working together to come up with this entire concept — the music, set design, location all of it naturally comes together because of how closely we step on each other's territories, that's the fun part. It's really an exchange of ideas. I try to contribute to every conversation when I feel I have something to offer — I have no idea how to build a stage so in that case, I keep my mouth shut!
It must be an exciting time for you. In the presentation today, there was this exploration of identity that went beyond PUMA's legacy — every person could find something that speaks to them.
Over the last couple of years there have been big trends, all pointing in similar direction — naturally, everybody jumps at the same. We realized rather quickly that we’re so much stronger as a unit and so much more appealing as a brand if we focus on who we truly are. This is the best embodiment of that; nobody has done a shoe like the Mostro and it's such an obvious link to our legacy. We actually know who we are and we love it, we love the absurdity and the fun. That's what we feel was showcased here today.
I see that. What elements of the original design were important to preserve?
The shoe really is an authentic bring-back. Honestly, we didn't switch much up besides changing the process a bit. We looked various models from the past, and upped it in some ways — particularly with the knee-high boot, elongating its spikes. It wasn’t the biggest success back then, but that's irrelevant, we felt like it would resonate with our times; it’s a one-to-one with a–slight–tweak on engineering.
How was that ethos carried on by the 56 looks presented tonight?
We have a couple of tracksuits and apparel pieces which were initially launched in the late sixties and seventies — it’s all about maintaining the clean design, the skeleton of the body, and then adjusting that model by extending a sleeve here, making the silhouette really long and narrow or the legs really wide so they sweep the floor there.. It's all in the details, the minor tweaks. That's what makes it contemporary while keeping it timeless. You look at it and feel really good because it's a classic but it's still updated for the right audience.
Last question before I let you run off — what synergies did you find between Alastair Mckimm's styling direction and your own perspective?
Oh, that's a good one. I didn't know what to expect because when creatives come together that's what usually happens. I don't know if he would agree but he might, I felt like we have a very similar understanding of aesthetics. We looked at things, saying, “No; yes; no,” until figuring out exactly what it was we wanted to say. It was very natural, fluid even. He's very structured, he's not a messy creative. For him, a structure paves the way for great ideas, and I'm the same. I noticed that in the first hour of working together and knew that it was going to be a lot of fun.
Major, congrats again!
“The connected dresses were inspired by our relationship, codependency, and what it means to be a merged entity,” Mattie and Amanda shared.
There was a clear exploration into the realm of the animalistic, with headwear combining feathers and other decidedly birdlike silhouettes, along with models bathed in the uniquely bright orange hue and black stripes of a tiger. A beekeeper’s headpiece was adorned in a delicate, lace veil, with the rest of the ensemble culminating in slitted tights and deliciously dramatic high, white boots. “We love to explore the aspect of being othered in society, highlighting marginalized genders, and deconstructing a living being,” the duo noted.
The brand brought together a spirited throng of longtime supporters and new converts across New York’s culture ecosystem: (artist Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo was a seat-mate, and writer Whitney Mallet was a line-mate), stylists Marissa Baklayan and Haley Wollens were present, and a splash of Hollywood talent à la Hunter Schafer and Amandla Stenberg were sprinkled in.
Barring any notion of the stoic, certain looks were greeted by impassioned cheers, and the clubby bass of the music was welcomed with head-bobs and light movement throughout the show. In a cavernous, raw space with open-floor seating and a sweeping wooden balcony around the periphery, Women’s History Museum did what they do best: creating a world that is both entrancing and welcoming, promising and suggestive of something entirely new.
