17 posts tagged "Milk Studios"
Saturday Night At Milk Studios: Alejandro Ingelmo And Ostwald Helgason
I would like to offer a big thanks to Milk Studios for making our lives easier during NYFW. I was able to see four presentations last night, all of which were on the same floor, one room next to the other (and, on such a chilly Saturday night, it was nice not to be running around the city). First stop: shoe designer Alejandro Ingelmo’s first “real” presentation, where his men’s fur-lined high-tops were the talk of night. The female editors in the room were calling for a women’s version of the shoe. Don’t worry, ladies, it’s coming soon.
After stops at Dean Quinn and Anndra Neen, the ultimate surprise of the night came from the London-based design duo Susanne Ostwald and Ingvar Helgason of Ostwald Helgason. Their latest collection (pictured above) was filled with pieces I want to wear now. The animal-print sweatshirts, ruffled miniskirts, cocktail dresses with interesting volume in the back, parkas, and printed coats would all be perfect pieces for the runway shows. This is definitely a brand to watch—it’s one of my favorite collections of the season so far and I am ready to add my name into the wait list for the clothes already.
Beamon’s Burlesque
You can’t judge a book by its cover, but often you can judge a bash by the line at the door. At Erickson Beamon’s jewelry presentation at Milk Studios yesterday, 80 people were queued up outside the burlesque-in-Berlin-themed presentation, which drew on styles from the 1920′s and ’30s. But this was less a presentation than a party. The event was styled as a cabaret, complete with a live performance by the Citizens Band and bejeweled models sashaying across the room in drop-waist dresses. Zoë Kravitz, Penn Badgley, Lily Kwong, and Johnny Weir were a few of the many who had made it in to check out the show.
As the tempo increased, Citizens’ Sarah Sophie Flicker—dressed in a velvet corset, feather headdress, and little else—took to the stage, impressing the crowd with her acrobatic high kicks. “If there’s one person in the room that’s a bigger ham than me, it’s Sarah,” said Michelle Harper, who was decked out in one of Beamon’s most elaborate necklaces from last season. “I’m seriously in love with this piece; I want to wear it every day.” Monique Erickson, who is rarely photographed without her trademark crystal headdress, replied, “Well, I do! Honestly, I wear this thing everywhere, literally like the burger joint on the corner.” Around 10 p.m., the crowd shuttled out, bound for more performances at Milk by the likes of Lissy Trullie and Wu-Tang Clan.
Reece’s Pieces
It’s funny how there’s always just a little more room in one’s closet for another handbag. If you beg to differ, then you might want to clear out some space for one from Reece Hudson, the line by Parsons alum Reece Solomon. Now in her fifth season, she made her official New York fashion week debut this year, presenting at Milk Studios over the weekend.
Riffing on her inspiration of where the city meets the beach, chic structured envelope clutches, two-tone totes, and evening satchels were arranged amid large pieces of driftwood. She enlisted filmmaker, musician, and longtime pal Harry McNally to create a video installation of the collection flying through the air against blue sky. Watching it, the effect was nearly as relaxing as a day at the beach. Come spring, you’ll see Solomon’s keeping her classic styles but branching out with more color, to include bold shades of green, yellow, and blue. She’s also building upon her standard crocodile and leather repertoire by introducing new fabrics such as croc-stamped raffia, calf hair with a chevron burnout, and striped jute. While everything is made in New York City, bead-embroidered leather is sourced from India.
When it comes to naming her bags, she keeps it simple and opts for a no-nonsense numerical order. If you’re coveting the round, ruby red evening bag embellished with paillettes, fringe, and feathers, ask for the 3.5; reference No. 14 if you’re trying to describe the black python calendar clutch. Or you could just walk into Kirna Zabête, point, and purchase. Solomon seems to have the numbers working in her favor. As part of the second wave of CFDA Incubator designers, she’s one of the lucky ten that was chosen from a pool of over 170 designers. How’s she feeling about the Incubator program these days? “It’s so exciting, it hasn’t even hit me yet!” she says.
Call His Name: Alejandro
“It’s my first real presentation, outside of my showroom, so I wanted to keep it really simple and precise,” shoe designer and fourth-generation cobbler Alejandro Ingelmo said at his Milk Studios presentation. “For me, less is more.” Not necessarily what you’d expect to hear from someone whose client roster includes Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Britney Spears. (For those maximalists, at least, he obliged with the occasional Swarovski Elements-crystal embellishment.)
Nor was Ingelmo’s simple really all that simple. He showed towering leather platform sandals and sharply angled ankle boots in black, nude, silver, and gold—not exactly hop-on-the-subway fare. But he’s conscious of comfort; he’s a runner himself and often spotted in New Balances when he’s not wearing his own leather high-tops—so he’s done thick-strap flat sandals, too.
You’ll have to wait for spring to snatch up the new version of his best-selling Thriller, a gravity-defying platform that’s a blend of sexy straps and futuristic metallic leather. If you need to get your Ingelmo fix now, you can check out the Helmut Lang and Chris Benz Spring shows, both of which feature AI collabs. Or you can just head down to his recently opened boutique on Wooster in Soho.
Faster Than Fast
“It’s like Wolford on acid,” Mark Fast said last night at Milk Studios, where he was presenting his new diffusion line, Faster. This was Fast’s first NYFW event, taking place just about a week before his main collection runway show in London. While Faster has been around for a few seasons now, the designer’s reason for showing in New York this time was his new capsule shoe collection with Aldo (the brand also sponsored the presentation), which featured the same perforated styles you find in his clothes. Models dressed in Fast’s fine-gauge knit dresses, bodysuits, and separates in a variety of electric shades-orange sherbet, sea foam, persimmon, and ultraviolet-looked alien-esque (“a new hybrid of women,” he called them) while posing android-style on a turntable platform. Faster has the same DNA as the designer’s namesake collection, which takes an innovative, couture approach to sweater dressing. With fringe, perforated holes, cutouts, and cobweb mesh, Fast’s body-con looks (touted as “luxury basics”) aren’t for everyone, but look killer onstage, as seen on a pre-pregnant Beyoncé at this summer’s Glastonbury music festival. Faster is slightly more accessible price-wise, but made for the same girl who wants to make a bold sweater statement.