Text, Vivian G. Kelly
Images, J. Ecochard
All images from the Presentation of the Fall 2008 Men’s Collection at the Woolworth Building, Tuesday, February 2nd , 2 – 4 pm
Time/Place: The GQ CFDA Future Menswear Collection Party
Rockefeller Center, Wednesday night, Jan. 30th, 2 days before the show
What we previously knew about “The Gilded Age” had nothing to do with the eco clothing line we discovered at the GQ party. Back in the late 1900’s [1878-1889] a great many fortunes were made, like John D. Rockefeller (oil) and Andrew Carnegie (steel). They were either businessmen or ”Robber Barrons” depending on your point of view. On the other side of the coin, there was flood of immigrants who came to Manhattan who dressed in dark and earth colored palettes such as the ones we saw on the Gilded Age preview platform. We’re happy to report that the Gilded Age we discovered at the GQ event was nothing but positive.
We braved the throng gathered around designer Stefan Miljanic long enough to ask a few questions. Mr. Miljanic is an artist who shifted gears a bit and went on to design for some big guns in the fashion biz including Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
LYRA MAG: It’s chic to be eco now it seems.
STEGAN MILIJANIC: I’ve always felt strongly about sustainability.
LYRA MAG: Tell us about some of the organic aspects of your brand.
STEFAN MILIJANIC: We use organic fabrics and natural dyes such as natural indigo and persimmon and other vegetable dyes. You’ll also find some of the oldest natural dyes in the collection: Volcanic mud dye, parchment, natural charcoal, tea, logwood, and Japanese Alder.
Although the GQ party was only a preview to the collection Mr. Milijanic showed later in the week at the Woolworth Building, we liked what we did saw that evening.
The look actually reminded us of the original Gilded Age, in that the shirts, pants, and jackets had a weathered and slightly imperfect appearance. Like Martin Margiela’s pieces, they may look “undone” but don’t be deceived - there’s a lot of handwork and hardwork that goes into achieving this “undone” look.
We’ve grown tired of the seemingly innumerable jean collections out there, even the organic ones, but we really liked G.A.’s natural indigo jeans in a very deeply hued blue, thanks to being dyed with the color of the actual indigo plant.
POINT OF DIFFERENTIATION:
AN INTERESTING MANUFACTURING PROCESS AND A FOCUS ON ARTISANAL SKILLS
Gilded Age works with some of the oldest machinery still used in industrial production. A lot of upper end design houses offer hand knit sweaters, but we doubt that many are created as they are at G.A. Some of their knit garments are knitted on "Hung Up" jersey machines [a staple in knitting from 1870's -1960's] It’s a time-consuming process as these machines operate 30x slower than regular knit machines. The beautiful sweaters that result are well worth the wait.