Last Updated on 09/09/2024 by Arun jain
New York is rarely seen as a shining city on a hill (or island) these days, what with news story after news story? Rats And Subway crime And potential Problems with the Adams administration. So Sunday afternoon was unexpectedly awakened to experiencing the city from a different perspective — as a place of potential and possibility, courtesy of Off-White.
Or courtesy of Off-White’s first New York show. The label gave up its usual slot on the Paris schedule to come to the city — specifically Pier 2 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, home to community basketball, ping pong and handball courts, with views of the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, on one side. On the other hand, and opposite, the skyscrapers of Wall Street.
The same crowd from New York came to see him: tennis stars Aryana SablenkaFresh off her wins at the US Open and Frances Tiafoe; filmmaker Lena Waithe and actor Issa Rae; and Flavor Flav, the former Public Enemy rapper who sponsored the US women’s water polo team and the team’s goalkeeper Ashley Johnson.
(Olympians are turning into front-row trends at New York Fashion Week: track phenom Gabby Thomas and gymnast Sunisa Lee at Tommy Hilfiger’s nautical Stripe-A-Rama on the old Staten Island Ferry, and Ms. Lee’s appearance at Brandon Maxwell.)
With the sun glinting off the glass, steel and water, tugboats pushing back and forth and weekend pickup players on various courts stopping to stare at the models suddenly appearing in their midst, the scene is a reminder of just how much attraction there is. A melting pot of image and attitude.
It’s a dream Ibrahim KamraOff-white’s designer, who then took over unexpected death Virgil Abloh, the label’s founder, is chasing anyway. This is the aesthetic he is trying to paint in his clothes, emphasizing the promise of cross-pollination and mixing. It’s not there yet. (He began his career as a stylist, and some of his clothes are more imagined for magazine pictures than real life.) But he’s getting close.
This season meant bodysuits cut to the navel, then adding a low-slung belt that doubled as a shimmering skirt with diamante tribal beading inspired by a trip to Ghana, where Mr. Abloh had family. That meant jeans that were cut front and back in balloon shade layers of mint green and carnelian silk, and baseball jackets. That meant citrus-hued camouflage and hand-painted fruit prints and off-white’s signature arrows and quotation marks (“denim”).
And that meant some unfortunate and seemingly pointless hip flaps that zipped over vests and jackets but were left to sway in the breeze. Hip flaps are never a good idea.
Mr. Abloh, though American, always held his shows in Paris, in part to escape what he saw as the box of “streetwear” and to prove that such pieces could be made with as much invention and detail as any ball gown — which they were. , in fact, just another kind of fashion. Now that cargo pants, sneakers and barn jackets are on every runway, there’s no doubt he was right. But Off-White nonetheless struggled in the golden shadows of the giant French fashion houses.
In moving the show to New York, Mr. Kamara didn’t just provide a new view of the city. It offered a new view of off-white.
Post The best view of New York appeared first New York Times.