At yesterday’s Eckhaus Latta show, the design duo got real. “There is something to saying what you mean, in all caps, at a time when things are dire, as they always are in America. It’s not sincerity actually, it’s something better: It’s anti-snobbishness, it’s fact-based, it’s sanity first. (It’s maybe the loser position to even allude to “money issues” at a fashion show, but money is what people are thinking about these days. That and precarity and scarcity and whether things can still be beautiful.)” read the press release, penned by say-it-as-it-is publicist Kaitlin Phillips.
The show aimed to reflect this sincerity: the brand sent a wearable, earth toned, deconstructed collection down the runway. It was rich in layering, zippy cargo pants, and asymmetrical skirts. Comfort reigned supreme, bar the knee high heeled boots, some rendered in fuchsia pink, others in leather, courtesy of the brand’s collaboration with the Ecco Kollektive.
It was this collaboration that, overall, stole the show, consisting of trousers, skirts, bomber-style hoodies, bags and boots in patchworked yellow, grey, and black leather, largely made up of deadstock fabrics.
Offering a feminine twist to the otherwise largely gender neutral collection, floral separates were taken from the Edward Steichen archive of textile design photography.
Likely to mark society’s desire for escape today, one model emerged down the runway on her phone—likely doomscrolling, given the reference to “dire" America in the show notes—while another walked the runway carrying a cheetah print bong (designed in collaboration with Gotham) and his matching his cheetah print pants.
The collection did feel sincere—though we can’t help but note the show notes' references to precarity and scarcity are a little out of place, given the brand’s hoodies cost well over $300.
Images courtesy of Getty
