Rad Hourani

NEW YORK, February 15, 2010
By Meenal Mistry
One of the principal complaints about young designers is that they lack a unique point of view and, particularly when you're facing a packed fashion schedule, a reason to exist. That's not an issue with Canadian designer Rad Hourani, who launched his label three years ago with a laserlike focus. His is a modern goth ethos that fetishizes a strict, lean black silhouette with straight skinny pants and rectangular jackets. The designer is specific. His clothes are always unisex and symmetrical, and you'll never see a button chez Hourani, only zippers.

Because of this unmistakable signature, which owes a debt to Rick Owens and Helmut Lang, watching Hourani's show is all about the subtle evolutions. "It's always a continuation from the last season," he said backstage. "I never start a new inspiration board." Today's collection, rendered solely in black and an almost-black navy, focused on transformation and layering: The precise cuts and clean lines on these pieces made it hard to see where one started and the other ended. Still, the look was luxuriously bundled in leather, thick ribbed knits, and, new this season, black sequins, patent leather, and neoprene.

Much of the collection was riddled with zippers, furthering the transformative experiment Hourani started last season: zip on, zip off, turn a jacket into a vest or replace a leather sleeve with wool. Apparently, there was a single jacket on the runway worn ten different ways. Hourani has interesting ideas, which by all appearances are well executed, and lofty goals. He's caught the eye of the important fashion crowd. Soon, this newcomer may well leapfrog beyond his cult status.

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