Text, Vivian G. Kelly
Images, Richard Spiegel
Time/Place: The unofficial kick-off to NY Fashion Week Fall 2008,
Wednesday night, Jan. 30th,, Rockefeller Center,
This show’s purpose was to showcase GQ Magazine’s picks for the honor of best new menswear talent in the USA. It was also the unofficial NY Fashion Week kick-off, judging by the industry VIP’s in attendance, including Michael Kors, Isaac Mizrahi and Fern Mallis. Among the capsule collections on display were: Gilded Age, SPURR, and Rag & Bone.
The overwhelmingly large crowd and the great menswear on display, led us early on, to the conclusion that this event was a hands down success within our first 5 minutes in the venue. A few words with the runway’s #1 lens man, Dan Lecca, confirmed our assessment. Said, Mr. Lecca, while hunched over his laptop busy downloading event images, “ I’m very impressed with what Jim Nelson [GQ’s Editor-in-Chief] has done here. These clothes are very wearable and put together in a very well-done presentation.”
Mr. Lecca is also Mercedes Benz’s official photographer for the NY, LA, and Miami shows and also shoots for every major publication you can think of in NY, Milan and Paris.
HIGHLIGHTS
GILDED AGE showed comfy looking shirts, pants, and jackets that had a weathered and slightly imperfect appearance as well as the indigo dyed jeans everyone was talking about. The big selling point for us; that designer Stefan Miljanic has designed a collection that looked great and is sustainable in the bargain.
RAG & BONE:
WHAT”S INTERESTING - the manufacturing process is based entirely in the USA and everyone they work with has been sewing clothing for generations.
This line’s been the recipient of a lot of buzz over the past few seasons, and accordingly, it was nearly impossible to get more than a few words in with Marcus Wainwright, one of the designers before he was called away for another interview.
LYRA: There’s a lot of tweed in this collection, it looks good.
MARCUS WAINWRIGHT: Tweed, well, we’re English!
LYRA: What was your inspiration and what were you trying to achieve in this collection?
MARCUS WAINWRIGHT: Our past and our English heritage inspire us. We also wanted to create something that would look well on the streets of New York today.
LYRA: Our friend over there picked out the oatmeal tweed suit for himself.
What’s your favorite piece?
MARCUS WAINWRIGHT: I’m going with the oatmeal tweed too.
www.rag-bone.com
SPURR – wins the award for best footwear, hands-down. We loved the smooth black leather boots with absolutely no embellishment on them. These beauties define that old truism “less is more”. The clothes did their part too; the detail work on the black wool and cashmere topcoat was noteworthy. The quadruple stitching on a hem is a fine detail you don’t see too often.
www.spurr.tv