Text, Vivian G. Kelly
Images, J. Ecochard
WHEN: Monday, January 21, 2008, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
THE PLACE: The Piers, the Southern Tip of the Forbidden Zone, 12th Avenue & 55th Street, NYC
THE BIG QUESTION: WHY THE PIERS? WHY SHOW SO EARLY?
The year, some of the menswear designers showing in NYC for fall 08 fashion week decided to band together and show as a group, down at the Piers, a week ahead of with the rest of the men’s and women’s designers during the official NY Fashion Week, Feb. 1-8. Among them were Yoko Devereaux and *Buckler [covered in our next post].
In PRINCIPAL, we loved the idea of an early men’s’ showing. We fondly remember “back in the day” when the men [designers] had their own fashion week and the women had their own as well. What worked was that it helped set a more leisurely tone to the proceedings for editors and photographers running around from show A to show B and back to shows C-Z. The running around comes into play as not everyone shows at Bryant Park, the official venue. Add to that, the win/lose situation of trying to decide WHICH of the 2-4 shows in a certain timeslot is more relevant to your coverage.
We say “in principal” because only a handful of designers threw in their hat and showed early at the ENK/Piers location on Jan. 20-21. In fact, several cancelled, electing to show next week at the GQ W/THE CFDA party on Wednesday, January 30th,.
HOW THE EVENING PLAYED OUT:
Pre-show, a few words from ENK’s Elise Kroll and the IMG’s Fern Mallis, their first collaborative effort to put together a men’s fashion week “to showcase the new young design talent out of NY.”
6:00pm – The Yoko Devereaux Runway Show
The line sheet on our seats showed only 17 looks and reminded us of early John Bartlett, with the tortoise sexy nerd reading specs, skinny flood pants and sneakers not laced all the way up. This nerd though, has a bit of LA or is it Brit boy? glam to him, with his loosely fitted hoodies in soft washed out camel and sage.
Said Mr. Salzer at the Post-show cocktail party, “Yoko Devereaux, is sportswear driven, set in an urban landscape. Many people describe it as ‘about a guy who travels between LA and the UK.’”
WHAT WORKED:
– Exit #8 grey double-breasted jacket with a jaunty black bowler hat closely followed by exit #13, a very shrunken navy and black wool herringbone suit.
- The ongoing collaboration with artist Charles Lutz. All graphics in this collection incorporate direct imagery from Mr. Lutz’s most recent selection of work.
Hopefully, they’ll adjust the length of the funnel pants to a more wearable length for the guys who are buying at retail.
Yoko Devereaux is available at The Yoko Devereaux boutique [338 Broadway, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn], and at specialty and better department stores nationwide,
www.yokod.com
www.charleslutz.com