2022 Consumed Part 1
Listing all the great art from the year: Fashion Edition
After reading the wonderful Levi Dayan’s substack of their favorite 100 albums from the year, my soon-to-be-fellow-substacker Emelia (whose substack I will link as soon as it exists) realized we wanted our own lists. Already an avid recorder of yearly film lists and newly surrounded by fashion Twitter runway roundups, we quickly realized some simple rules: the longer the list the better, and the more lists the better.
These yearly lists can be incredibly performative in their defining of taste and philosophy, and often difficult in their conception of hierarchical defining of unlike work. A list can be challenging because it shouts to the reader to be understood. “I am someone whose favorite film this year was Crimes of the Future! That is my identity!“ My solution to this issue of what the list can confine and do? Include as many lists as possible, some unranked, and include as many mediums as possible. Taste be damned, this is what I consumed.
Runway Shows
Glenn Martens was discussed lovingly this year for his work revitalizing Diesel, reconfiguring Jean Paul Gaultier, and challenging convention with Y-Project. While controversies of quality may surround the excessive and sexy(?) Diesel Belt “skirt“, Marten’s runway, if not his cultural impact, speaks for itself. This is likely the best manifestation of y2k resurgence, done up in baggy jeans and club garb. It’s a new application of the baggy roughness Balenciaga champions and a respectable and enticing way out of Demna’s wavering grasp on the culture.
Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele was supposedly ousted due to an inability to deliver new directions for the house. After a six-year tenure giving Gucci new life, new cool, new meaning, and new consistency, I couldn’t help but see this as an unjust upset. Resort 23’ was the sexiest Gucci show of the year, the sleekest, and the freakiest. Michele’s Gucci universe incorporated hanging facial jewelry, skin behind sheer fabrics, voluptuous capes, and glittering things everywhere. It moved throughout definitions of Gucci as street, arcane aristocratic, 60’s stylish, and movie star brilliance while recognizing the mutability of each garment and ensemble. Michele knew luxury better than almost anyone in fashion today. The energy he brought to Gucci will be severely missed in the fashion landscape.
Jil Sander 2023 Resort Menswear
I wrote briefly about the sublimity of this collection in my first substack ever. This collection applies the sleek perfectionism and minute construction of Jil Sander to the graphics and silhouettes of the west. The result is magnificent - luxurious materials and gorgeous cuts melded with details that feel personal and powerful. The silver bits and bobs on a blue sweater, an eggshell that emerges as an almost orange on a pair of Chelsea boots, the just wide-enough collar on a pale yellow shirt. Few things feel so perfect to me.
In becoming a Junya fan this year I was shaken from my deconstructed-Carhartt-blazer stupor to be reminded that the reason the designer is famous is for his womenswear. Sculptural, rugged, powerful, and fun, I could not contain my delight that these were pieces that actually got to be sold. I doubt I will ever forget the sight of these leather patchwork dresses and ruffles actually hanging in Dover Street.
The final Vuitton show overseen directly by Abloh, every collection of Abloh leftovers since has felt like a paler and paler shadow. There was the spectacle of the bouncy house, Dudamel conducting Tyler the Creator compositions, and glorious colors. Paint cans became bags stuffed with faux flowers, suiting was excellent, and many of Abloh’s motif pieces and styles such as varsity jackets, classical art obsessions, and tracksuits, crystalized into some of the best pieces Abloh made for the house. The array of white-winged figures, brides or angels, announced the end of an era. While memorializing Abloh through the Vuitton runway has continued since last December, no show has captured the energy of Louis Vuitton Fall.
In a year of post-ironic, deconstructionist, “funny“, anti-fashion, this was one of the few jokes that felt both consistent and actually functional. Well, if life preserver dresses and beach umbrella Chanel suits can be considered functional. I became enamored with this collection for a month, allowing it to seep into my thesis and classwork. By the time my obsession began to subside a new Moschino lookbook was already out as if to mock the fact that I found this so special. It is special though, and I wrote about it in detail here.
It’s been two years since Rose showed a live runway presentation, and with her talent, at virtual lookbooks, she only really does so when she has something to say. I’d tried multiple times this year to write about this collection, and it was a bit like trying to write about a rock formation or a solar eclipse: it just was. It was odd, misshapen, and erotic, full of reconstructed uniforms and powerful inversions. It’s destabilizing - at least, it destabilized me.
The expectation of a collection by a western designer inspired by another culture is exoticism. Leave it to Rick Owens to return from Egypt obsessed with mosquito netting and beetles. I recognize that sometimes, a modern piece by an age-old artist becomes a favorite because of its proximity to when you began to like them. That may be the case here with Owens. His huge gowns, his bright, chrome shades, and his pointed exaggerated shoulders helped me finally conceive of his melding of golden-age cinema with punk and sex. All of it felt bizarrely wearable and enticing; a beckoning into a new means of wearing and inverting.
I feel truly lucky to be an Undercover freak while this collection was released. It seems like an authentic and powerful reflection, a refining of form and punk codices, and a reminder of Takahashi’s incredible ability. I write about the collection at length here.
Walter Van Beirendonck FW22 Menwear
I like Walter! Despite the years since he was widely worn, he seems to consistently outperform those who appropriate or condense his shtick (Kerwin Frost and Jeremy Scott come to mind). Beirendonck is wackier, quirkier, and freakier than them all, and this collection proves it. The stiff, dark leathers, the masks, and the mixing of suiting with quarantine gear give Demna x Adidas a run for its money. Forget Beirendonck’s weird cancel culture explanation and instead focus on his goal of making clothes for aliens, and the show becomes one of the best of the year.
SPECIAL MENTION
Thom Browne SS23, R13 2023 Resort, Noir Kei Ninomiya SS23, Kenzo SS23, Miu Miu SS23 RTW
Garments
Awake NY Flower Coat
When Virgil Abloh said streetwear was dead it opened up new definitions for supposedly streetwear brands like Awake, and also challenged the limits of what these popular and desirable brands could do. This coat is the culmination of Angelo Baque’s growth as a designer, tastemaker, and melder of “streetwear” and prep. It forgoes the foreign charm and price of Aime Leon Dore/Noah while staying more refined than flashier Supreme or Pleasures coats. It is wholly itself, Awake made anew yet without any authenticity lost.
Needles Argyle Cardigan
The colors being used by Needles this season were fantastic, and this cardigan has continuously stood out from its many lookalikes and iterations. The baby blue feels ubiquitous with any outfit, almost too modern for such a vintage-looking garment, yet perfect in that regard.
Martine Rose Telephone Viscose Shirts
These are so much fun. I love the way the heaviness of the material mixes with Rose’s bold colors and graphics. Controversial perhaps, but to me indicative of a bold, knowing ugliness that transforms into something fascinating and sexy.
Human Made Adimatic
Adidas seemed to be pushing the Adimatic as a new skate silhouette, and it seems like these and the charcoal Neighborhood iteration went fast. The colors on these are perfect, the shapes a bit controversial, but ultimately wholly appealing for a Los Angeles wardrobe.
Palace Gucci Denim
Luxury streetwear collaborations may be approaching capacity in interest and invention, although Alessandro Michele was one of the best at it. Palace seems to know exactly what they want from their luxury collaborators like Moschino, Polo, and Gucci and exactly how to harness and present it. Their work can make the most cynical of brands seem meaningful, present, and important. I am baffled that Palace made rhinestone denim and allover prints seem cool. Must be the perfect bootcut or their styling with lime green zip up sweaters.
Junya Watanabe Jamiroquai Wool Jackets
A luxuriously soft, well-cut way to advertise that you listen to Jamiroquai while also appealing to the world of English subculture, woodsmen, and archive fashion fanatics. A joyful combination.
Brain Dead Fabrications Dickies
The freedom Brain Dead has embodied through their multiple Los Angeles locations, ongoing collaborations, and only expanding resources is unlike any other “streetwear“ brand on the scene. These were available exclusively in the Silverlake Brain Dead-Dickies location, and are probably the only Dickies collaboration in a good while to expand and challenge how the pair can be customized. It’s cute without destroying wearability, its fun without being inaccessible.
Oakley Brain Dead Sneakers
Thank god! Brain dead also makes shoes! These are perhaps the best pieces of footwear Brain Dead has made, and they only seem to improve. A perfect marriage of gorpcore, alien aesthetics, and luxurious and experimental textures. The only Brain Dead shoe that can sell you a way of life without hairy suede.
Union “Boycott Lettuce“ Hoodie
My favorite hoodie of the year if not simply for the story. Union is fantastic at using their clothes for conversation, political introspection, and flexing fantastic quality. To me, Union is not simply an iconic store, it is one of the best brands in the “streetwear“ scene.
Louis Vuitton Flower Overcoat
Reminiscent of one of my oldest clothing obsessions: Looking like a comfy couch in somebody’s grandparent’s room. Jokes aside, I love that this is the kind of alternative, odd luxury Abloh has helped usher into our culture.
Kiko Kostadinov x Hysteric Glamour Asics
I may be a defender of the mainline Asics Kiko constructs, but the perfection in the execution of these as more special inversions is hard to debate. Not the best Kiko shoe, and described by some as a harbinger of continued ironic footwear, but emblematic of the shifts and heights of 2022 fashions.
Doublet “Onion Dyed“ Bombers
I suppose this is a joke, but I actually adore the idea of advertising how your garment was made. Then again, I may have still liked the bomber if it just said “Onion”. That’d be enough of a draw for me.
Y-3 x Palace Sneakers
As a new obsessive of Yohji, this reproduction of one of the first Y-3 Adidas hit a chord.
New Online Ceramics Graphics
Maybe the only thing on this list that I actually purchased. The new Online Ceramics tee shirts are as well cut, hilarious, and graphic as they always have been. 2022 has yielded a new political bend to their graphics, allowing the conscious hypebeasts to project criticisms of fluoride, the meat industry, and GMOs. It’s a fantastic direction for a brand being rapidly associated with Carhartt donning fuckboys and A24 merch - a way to stay relevant and outside of neutral aesthetics.
Story mfg Tomato Shirt
The beauty of a tee shirt is its ubiquitousness: it can appear anywhere. Like, for instance, on the back of famed celebrity chef, Los Angeles food truck royalty, and recent food blogger Roy Choi. This wasn’t the only reason I love the Tomato, it’s a great take on vintage design and reconstructed hippiedom. The fact that Choi wears it, however, only makes its appeal stronger.
Le Fleur x Solvaire Baby Blue Loafers
If these were in off-white they would be higher on the list. Still, I’ve been a little freak about the kind of loafers Tyler wore on Igor/CMIYGL tours for a while, and it’s gratifying to finally see these for sale. The transparent soles on these are particularly interesting.
Louis Vuitton x Nike Air Force Ones
I fell in love with the versatility and inventiveness of Abloh’s range of AF1s in using them as a subject for my thesis. Complicated in that they’re almost 100 thousand at resale and therefore practically unwearable, yet Abloh intended most of them as runway experiments and museum pieces anyway.
Martine Rose Nike Shox
I love the English specificity of this model and its colors and the experiment of the slight heel. Appeared suddenly, yet with incredible intention, storytelling, and style. The square toe is the cherry on top, the detail that makes these as desirable as they are.
Undercover ‘22 Coats
I’m always interested in Takahashi’s new outerwear, and among Psycho-inspired collage coats and an Eastpak collab, these simpler iterations were forgotten. The colors and patterns are perfect, I love the collar on the red piece, and the arm pockets are an interesting touch. It makes me continuously giddy that Takahashi’s heart is always in the reconstruction of English subcultures.
Kiko Kostadinov’s Antharas Obsidion Shoe
My joke (but not really) answer for sneaker of the year. Gorgeous paneling, beautifully shaped, and all-around seductive.
Kapital Patch Denim
While many Kapital garments straddle the rough, surprising, and what David Sedaris calls “wrong” and “tragic.“ In each American location that stocks Kapital there will be one different garment, a new hat, or a jacket with new panels. These oddities accompany the reissued and tweaked mainstays of premium denim, trucker hats, and fleeces, which are then accompanied by spectacles. This will entail a grayish boro denim shirt, a bomber jacket that becomes a pillow, or in this case, the Kapital Patch denim. Styled in lookbooks with a cardigan and 70s’ collared shirt, the pair becomes incredibly naturalized and authentic - it’s a perfect example of the ability of the most outlandish Kapital pieces to become naturalized.
Junya Watanabe x Berberjin “Denim“
Finally, seeing this set and writing an essay about them quite literally sparked my interest and passion in fashion writing and in Junya Watanabe. I would not be writing about fashion in the same way without this pair. I’ve linked the full essay here.
Junya Watanabe Carhartt Nylon Coat
How many Junya clothes are too many to include on this list? A coat that shocked me when I saw it, drew my attention and research to find all of its many iterations throughout the years, and reminded me that this will be the only combo of material, cut, and color that truly moves me.
Comme Des Garcons Homme Plus Quilted Shrink Blazer
You know a garment is truly powerful when it challenges common sense, basic economics, and the limits of the imagination. I tried on this multi-thousand-dollar blazer in Dover Street Market only to find it shrunken, tight, and oddly shaped. It is perfect. I think about it weekly. It’s the kind of fixation I can never adequately explain to others, but its bulbous shape, its thickness, and its patterning make it one of my favorite garments this year.