A New York designer took to New York fashion week to make a statement about the decision of the US supreme court to reverse the constitutional right to an abortion.
This fashion week is the first since the June decision, and on Tuesday afternoon, the women’s rights activist was among 50-strong “goddesses and warriors”, who included a teenage climate campaigner.
The show focused on those who were overlooked, inspired by ancient Greek poet Sappho, who was considered the female Homer by her daughter after she decided to dress like her for Halloween. She wondered if she would have heard of her had she been a man.
In order to make clothes that women can actually wear, the designer launched her label in 2015. Despite showing both women’s and men’s fashion on Tuesday, the modest number of actual men actually on the catwalk – there were a few, though they largely appeared as accessories to the women, and were dressed incomplimentary colour suits – was an attempt to put women front and
The collection sat somewhere between ancient and modern Greece and Brooklyn, but inside a warm, corrugated-metal fish hangar. The Resistance Revival Chorus was dressed in white floor-length gowns and played the show.
At a time when women designing for women was a rarity, Nancy Hearst made a quiet arrival in fashion at a time when she lives in New York. Two of the most visible women in US politics are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wore a teal suit for a fashion shoot for Interview magazine, andJill Biden, who wore two different versions of the same embroidered dress on the night of the inauguration and first address to Congress.
You can sign up for First Edition.
Every weekday morning, Archie Bland and Nimo Omer show you the top stories.
One-third of the collection was made from deadstock fabrics and the shoe soles were mostly non-toxic. The glue that held together the gold-foil knitted dresses was eco certified, even though the warehouse was packed to the rafters with international press and buyers. At Coach, leather footballs and old leather jackets were reworked into jumpsuits, coats and bags, as circularity muscled its way on to the runway.
Vevers had a love for American neo-noir cinema. It was all about modern proportions and bare legs and was set on a rickety New York pier. There were seven oversized leather jackets in chocolate brown, a pair of trousers and a beautiful patchwork coat, followed by a bunch of paint-spattered knits and various short babydoll dresses in pastels and gingham. The shoes were bright in the 80s and very distressed in Oz.
In both cases the clothes looked to the future while working with fabrics that were set firmly in the past.
Is fashion sustainable? Yes, says the woman.
