Style.com

Julian Louie

post a comment
NEW YORK, September 10, 2010
By Alison Baenen
It wasn't your usual fashion inspiration: The Hyena & Other Men, a book of photographs by the South African lensman Pieter Hugo that documents the lives of Nigerian street entertainers and their faunal entourage—three hyenas, two pythons, and four monkeys—provided Julian Louie with this season's springboard. Influenced by the way Hugo's human subjects mixed traditional, opulent African garments with found pieces of American athleticwear, Louie played with adornment and collage. An asymmetric silk satin skirt came festooned with tassels like the kind you'd find on a tie-back for a pair of damask curtains, and a crepe de chine shirtdress had a trim of textured haircloth.

During the presentation, Louie explained that he wanted the clothes in the collection to be experienced individually, as an assemblage of parts rather than full looks, so the pieces were shown statically, hung from crisscrossing racks. Running in sharp diagonals along the floor—echoing the clean, geometric lines of Louie's separates—were the results of the designer's second collaboration with Aldo. These open-toe wedged ankle boots, made from patchwork suede and contrasting tribal prints in cotton ikat, featured some of the collection's most playful mixing and matching.

Fingers crossed the kicks make it to stores; they looked great with the clothes and called attention to the subtle, crafty details in Louie's beautifully constructed pieces.

COMMENTS

(0) ADD YOURS
welcome ! logout
you must be logged in to leave a comment | join now

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

Follow us on Twitter

Loading...

Style File Blog

may 27, 2012

Shopping alert

On Our Radar: Chance

11:05 AM
When I was a kid, my mom used to dress me in stripes, and ever since then, I have racked up a...

Outside sources

Lara Stone’s Star Trek, And More Of Today’s Top Stories

10:05 AM

more from the style file blog ›
Subscribe to Style.com today!