2024 Consumed Pt 1

The best of fashion, discoveries, etc.

Remember 2024? Me neither.

It’s been a dramatic, divisive, disheartening year for fashion both personally and in general, but this malaise of doom and capital has been punctured by moments of powerful inspiration and tactile connection. This year has provided a newfound confidence in my local fashion communities, in innovation, and in clothing remaining an artistic refuge for years to come - whatever they may bring.

Below is my list of things that inspired me this year, ordered fluidly and noncommittally.

Runways

Luar FW24

Luar shows are unjustly simplified by their front-row guests (Beyonce, Madonna, whatever) and a very trendy bag. These are not unimportant parts of Luar’s growth and cache, but both bag and celebrity become accessories to what is Raul Lopez’s sensationally styled, sexy, very smart clothes.   

“Deceptionista“ is Lopez’s ode to the metrosexual, articulated through slouchy suiting, cinched skirts, and acres of faux leather. There’s an 80s sensibility to Lopez’s luxury signifiers; his silver “L” belts, maximalist illustrated silk shirts, and monogrammed trenches. Anything too weird is dressed up by these signifiers, from the strings of pearls across boulder shoulders to snowy fur knee-high boots to meet mini shorts. Lopez does everything to confuse the place of his suiting. Giant fur paws cover the oversize of a jacket sleeve, trousers are cut at the thigh and billow down below the knee, and dove-sleeved double-breasted blazers tuck into wide skirts. To top it off the whole show shined in pimply oxbloods, milk caramels, and royal metallic blues. 

Still, none of these gestures feel particularly dated nor derivative - Lopez’s mixture of subcultural signifiers (80s lux, queer club kids, streetwear, etc) meld together to define an articulate Luar look. There is a recognizable Luar silhouette, a Luar alchemy, a Luar sort of sex. Even as I return to this show with new anxiety about the future, Luar’s is the sort of fantasy that seems primed to survive and thrive against a bleak industry - a maximalism of scraps and plastic luxury, the elegance of slashed cloth.

Martine Rose FW24

As Martine Rose grows increasingly mainstream, there is a question of how Rose will retain her community focus, her London specificity, and her total mastery of menswear. Well, Rose’s answer for FW24 was a dual show. One was held privately in London for friends and family. The other was in Paris for industry members and media and began as a recording of London’s show until models emerged to restage the show as a surprise. Friends and family get their private celebration while the public feels invited into the fold. What more proof is needed that the Martine Rose cult is only growing.

But even this is just a logistical specialness. Rose’s FW24 show was also her first womenswear show. This was basically by technicality, as Rose’s silk blouses, leathers, bags, and heels have been styled for women for almost her whole career.  Still, Rose’s furry wool shawls, twisted silk shirts, opera coat/parkas, and neatly knotted bows to close blazers felt totally new for her. The way it’s presented feels as gloriously unisex as it is complex, and all are welcome to the low drape of scarflike shirts and tightly multi-cinched leather coats. This show also features some of Tamara Rothstein’s most elegantly simple styling too: great suit and coat combos, oddball layered colors. It’s one of Rose’s smallest yet densest collections of late and one that continues to reveal itself.

I also have a shirt from this collection now (scroll down, it’s also on my list of favorite garments of the season, I’ll write much more on it this year).

Willy Chavarria SS25

What can be luxurious? A floor length tulle dress with a ruffled neck with a heeled brogue? A tracksuit in an unexpected pastelle? Voluminous silken trousers with deep pleats? The bulbous back of a carhartt jacket becoming an opera coat? This is the line Willy Chavarria walks with SS25, and rather brilliantly too.

The particular allure here is in the inversions to combine workwear and formalwear in a way that emphasizes both worlds - each style is accessible & replicable whether dressing for a day in the park or a night at a gala. There is subcultural specificity and dazzling utilitarian simplicity.) You could call it a recipe for heightening the uniform and hardening the luxurious for a life of work.  I’ve been unable to stop thinking about the breadth of this show amidst its ubiquity. It is one of the few fully formed and, importantly, new articulations of what luxury can be.

I devote a couple more paragraphs to Chavarria’s show in my NYFW recap here.

Comme Des Garçons SS25

By last season, adequately meeting commercial, business-as-usual modern fashion shows at their own logic grew impossible. Enter Rei Kawakubo’s biannual dose of sculptural fashion body modification. This is perhaps the one show on this list centering garments and looks that aren’t really meant to be worn regularly, if at all. The whole thing was a sculpture garden of sex toys composed of an aristocratic dumpster. I wrote at the time that “Kawakubo portrays an artistry of collected trash used to reconstruct memories of complex human civilization. Queens of trash, pet toys of trash, beds of trash, sex of trash, Roman ephemera of trash.” And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that. “On an optimistic note, all trash gets to be art.” SS25 presented an art-fashion rooted not just in the political, but the futurist and optimistic. 

Junya Watanabe SS25 Menswear

The barrier between Junya Watanabe’s prim, propper menswear and bizarrely adventurous womenswear has fallen. Amid more and more high profile, viral collaborations, Watanabe’s menswear has veered into geometric shapes, feminine cuts, and turns toward particularly regarded womenswear shows. Sometimes the result is a very specific garment inversion, like FW24’s coat-pant hybrids and sharp capes. Other times, the marriage is subtler.

SS25 referenced two Junya Shows: his SS16 sapeur menswear show of tuxedos, bowler hats, and denim patchwork, and his womenswear FW21 show of reconstructed rock tees. The result paid tribute to Watanabe’s garment’s ability to become subcultural signifiers while retaining a mutability: a black denim double breasted blazer could be casual or pair nicely with a bow tie, a mark of sapeur allegiance, trad Americana chops, or plain and simple Junya fanaticism. Pieces that recur in the show - denim ripped just so, plaid patches, gleaming Trickers shoes and Mary Janes, and loud vintage tees - can all be replicated/repeated through wear, purchase of vintage clothing, or similar vintage Junya that used the same motifs. SS25 is more than a capitalization of popular archive references, it offers an excuse for collectors to wear and search for old obsessions, bringing value to ignored vintage. For the uninitiated, it’s an invitation to join the cult of Junya.

Lemaire FW24/SS25

I told myself I wouldn’t combine any shows for this list, but the Lemaire presentations this year were both held at the same venue, and displayed very similar visions of a quiet, layered, luxuriously functional style. Because Lemaire looks usually involve a number of great coats and sweaters, it can become difficult to isolate garments away from such well formed characters and looks. Inversely, with a range of mostly logo-less, earth-toned, and oversized garments, Lemaire pieces seem endlessly customizable and fluid. With so many competitors crafting timeless, vintage inspired, basically unisex visions of quiet and easy luxury, it’s impressive that Lemaire retains such distinct allure.

Xander Zhou SS25

This show is a borderline costume party, replete with cyberpunk jesters and generals in primary colors. There are many jumpsuits, conical hats, canes, medals, bows, and boots that curl comically at the toe. Identities blur as clown becomes soldier, businessman becomes ballerina. The whole show is a whirl. Still, one of Zhou’s most impressive feats is rooting these 64 looks in a small handful of silhouettes that move from exaggerated costume to realistic and legitimate dress. It’s a very dramatic balancing act, crafting such heights of fantasy and making the wild seem wearable. 

JW Anderson SS25 Menswear

I latched on to Jonathan Anderson’s SS25 menswear week presentation show, and thinking about his potential move to Dior I’ve only returned to it more frequently. This testament to what Anderson calls “irrational clothing“ eschews the characters, the codes, the gendered binaries that place rationality and logic on to garments. The show tests the durability of strange, beautifully crafted pieces to stretch between occasion, body, and gender.

John Alexander Skelton FW24

Whenever John Alexander Skelton shows on the runway rather than his usual lookbooks, his work shines. In this case, by candlelight - models strode in their linen suits dyed in warm tones, black robes, chalk stripes, and paisleys while holding slim candlesticks. Small details like a pointed red cap, the cinch of a coat, and (as always) an abundance of buttons gestured at a more specific sort of gothic agedness than usually referenced. Seeing Skelton’s clothing in natural light, let alone out in the open, is a special occurrence (his clothing is sparsely stocked and unavailable online), and this show celebrated the aesthetic bounds and surprising relevancy of an oftentimes ignored artisanal, Victorian inflected clothing subculture.

SS Daley FW24

I can’t find SS Daley in the US (or in New York at least), so many of these garments have been admittedly off my mind. However, while revisiting the year’s runway I had to include this show for its impeccable styling and strikingly wearable inversions of gendered dress. The mixup of these codes is one thing, but Daley plays also with age and occasion. Beyond the usual lace with corduroy suits, silky flooded trousers, and crochets, this runway got broader: a bathrobe becomes a puffer coat, a cowboy poncho becomes a dress, a 1930s waistcoat minus pants. My favorite may be a yellow raincoat out of an early 20th century child’s closet at knee length with matching hat and wellies. There is an innocence to this kind of dress, yet certainly not an ignorance.

Special Mention

Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen & Diotima SS25 - I worked at both of these shows, so it seems unfair to judge them by the same standards of all those that I could only consume online. That being said, each of these shows became deeply important to me, not simply because they were the first I could (sort of) witness in person.

Melitta Baumeister FW24 - I’m a huge Melitta fan. Larger piece on her work coming this month!

Walter Van Beirendonck FW24 - There is no strangeness quite like Beirendonck’s. Almost included solely for the look with spider legs emerging from a sweater.

Hodakova SS25 - Proof that Hodakova is more than a one trick pony. Their rise is one of the few fashion highlights of the year.

And…Martine Rose SS25 - What can I say, I’m a superfan. I write more about the show here.

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Garments

Undercover FW24 Double R Diner Tee Shirt

I love Undercover most when it actively designs within new worlds. One doesn’t simply advertise fantasy in these garments, they become a part of it. Anyone can make a tee shirt of Throne of Blood or 2001: a Space Odyssey, but Jun Takahashi will dress you like a samurai, recreate a space suit as a functional parka, and if need be create his own fantasy worlds to costume.

I’ll admit that much of Undercover’s Twin Peaks collection was fandom focused, mostly slapping characters onto garments. There is one exception: a tee shirt advertising the infamous Double R diner. This shirt is not worn nor mentioned in the series, but the beauty of the shirt is it looks as if it could’ve been sold by the diner as a souvenir. It wraps you into Twin Peaks, turning you into a cursed local. 

Martine Rose SS24 Beige Lining Shirt

I wrote one of my favorite pieces this year about this shirt:

Junya Watanabe FW24 Coats with Pant Attachments

Almost all of Watanabe’s FW24 show was centered on this garment: a regular jacket with the front of a pair of pants sewn on to give the illusion of an additional trouser over what the wearer has on. This is reproduced in a Levi’s set, a Carhartt set, a full wool suit, and a suit jacket with denim. In each case the effect is a strange doubling. It is a time honored luxury of excess fabric and of layers in suiting defining formality. It also manages to create a skirt like shape, and an inevitable breakage in uniform formal dress.

The suit becomes two dimensional here. It’s power is emptied, a plastic image to mutate and disarm however the wearer chooses. When worn with shorts or without pants, this jacket will likely show one’s bare legs. It doesn’t cover you, it is a symbol of power made to be nothing more.

Evan Kinori x Orslow Wide Leg Selvedge Denim

I love Evan Kinori because when they want to make something they don’t already, they find those that are best at it. Kinori doesn’t make shoes, so they work with Guidi and Tricker’s to create perfect pairs. Kinori works with denim on occasion, but to make a perfect Selvedge pair he turned to Orslow. This pair of pants holds a particular denim-obsessed menswear nerdiness for being of such thickness and wideness. Orslow’s Dad Jean was already one of the wider selvedge pairs available, and this one got even wider. These are simply perfect.

Chopova Lowena FW24 Sofia Bag

I spend all my time at work hanging around handbags, most of them overpriced, overrun with logos, and overhyped. As a result my standards for what qualifies a “good“ handbag have risen as well. This year, this was the coolest bag I encountered. This was my favorite year for Chopova Lowena, and I almost included many of their animal tops and scratched leathers had this one bag not been so consistently gorgeous whenever I encountered it.

The Sofia is cherry red, slouchy, huge, and comes with pockets for ornate silver combs and carabiners (included), pens, and sometimes jars of mayo (Hellmans to be exact, although technically that’s SS25). It is trendy, yet unique, it is functional, it is loud. It is logo less. Why can’t anyone get this mixture right? I suppose the answer is Chopova Lowena isn’t just any brand.

Prada SS24 Shirts

Xenomorphs, wilting orchids, daisies, bright blues, and corporate grays. Sounds like my kind of print. This kind of 80s kitsch made haute would be enough to cement a Prada print as legendary, if not for the fact that many of these images are printed onto fringe. The effect is of the flower or alien moving alongside the wearer, given a new life through wearing. The most magical piece of clothing I’ve seen at Prada in a while (and one of their few louder garments without a logo).

Ponte SS24 Recomposed denim skirt

I’ll never quite get over discovering this skirt at Dover Street Market around the same time they started carrying Duran Lantink and Hodakova. The latter two of the three sustainable additions have risen to enormous acclaim, while Ponte has remained mostly on the sidelines. True, their pieces are fewer and their runways less deconstructionist, yet wearing this skirt with its crotch level jockstrap waistband allowing the waist to fold over created such a wearable, simple sort of sexiness.

Clot x Adidas Patent Superstars

This was one of my favorite shoes of the year if not for its simplicity and versatility. The added heel on the black superstar, the stitched formal sole of the white pair, the fringe at the tongue of both, all felt like they’d been waiting eons to meet this pair. I love a sneaker that will look beautiful worn and aged, something

Kiko Kostadinov SS24 Sonia Slip on Brogue

One of 2024’s greatest personal fumbles was seeing two amazing looking women wearing different color pairs of the Sonia brogue, complimenting them, and realizing as they left that they were Laura and Deana Fanning - the designer of the shoe. This isn’t the only reason I like these, like the Clot pair above they do a great job of melding functionality with prep aesthetics, here with a gorpy twist via sole and color. And what colors! Who else is pulling off such milky turquioises or such grape soda purples? My only critique is a regular one for me: these deserve to exist in many, many sizes.

Schiaparelli FW24 Ab Bag

This bag is around eight thousand dollars. It is too much money. If it was not so obscenely expensive, it would not just be higher on this list, but likely worn by the many Schiaparelli fans who seem to ignore it for its price tag.

Now that we have that out of the way, what a perfect and sexy bag. The belly button piercing is cute, but I would give mine a painful looking safety pin nipple piercing and a weirdo chain. Or a shirt, a bra, a pair of pants - the options for this bag are as bizarre as they are endless. A tote to end all totes.