Mother Daughter Holy Spirit Throws a Star-Studded Trans Rights Fundraiser

photography by Fernando Palafox
text by Karly Quadros

Last weekend, Mother Daughter Holy Spirit closed out their three-part fundraiser for the Trans Justice Funding Project with a celebrity-filled bash at Gitano NYC. The party was a veritable who’s who of New York City’s queer underground and nightlife royalty, brining together everyone from film stars Chloë Sevigny and Naomi Watts (and her daughter, model Kai Schreiber) to cult favorites Julio Torres and Richie Shazam to art world darling Tourmaline and supermodel Alex Consani.

“It’s funny, we called Holy Spirit the final event, and that’s how we planned it. But being there, in the energy of it all, it didn’t feel like an ending. It felt like a beginning,” said co-founder John Mollet.

The night’s events rounded out a flurry of fundraising events as trans rights are increasingly under attack under this administration. Mother Daughter Holy Spirit, which was co-founded by John Mollet and Bobbi Salvör Menuez, began with a runway show featuring Alex Consani, Richie Shazam, and more stomping the runway in clothing from the likes of Vaquera, Willie Chavaria, and Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen. Next came a pop-up boutique and online store stocked with garments donated from celebrities like Chloë Sevigny and Hari Nef, with some custom artist t-shirts peppered in for good measure.

Holy Spirit was the group’s largest event yet, scaling up from 200 attendees to over 600 dancing the night away in view of the East River. The crowd was largely trans, a mishmash of underground art legends, it girls, theater kids, and militant leftists all dancing under glittering chandeliers and palm trees. Christeene confronted the crowd with her raw, transgressive drag, while Juliana Huxtable and Fashion bumped pounding dance tunes all night long.

“[Gitano] was an unexpected choice for a crowd that often piles into dark and dank Brooklyn warehouses, but we wanted it to feel glamorous, elevated, even a bit reminiscent of the days when the queers and the artists and the yuppies all partied together at Studio 54 — a New York Moment, but this time, with a special focus on celebrating trans people as culture makers, change makers, and invaluable members of our world,” said head of production Lio Mehil.

So far, Mother Daughter Holy Spirit has raised over $50,000 in funds for trans-led grassroots organizations across the country, with additional closet and t-shirt sales scheduled in the coming weeks. In a time when the need for resources and material support for the trans community is more essential than ever, trans joy and self-expression were front and center at Holy Spirit.

“I’m not a trans person, and maybe this sounds selfish, but I truly believe my world, our world, becomes better when trans people have full equality. The trans people I’ve known throughout my life have brought forward a kind of strength, empathy, and clarity that the world desperately needs… I envision a society that seeks trans wisdom more deliberately and more often. I feel so deeply grateful to be part of a project that says to trans people: you are seen, appreciated, and loved,” said Mollet.

Explore the party with exclusive photography from Fernando Palafox.

High Fashion Goes Hi-Fi With L'Atelier Sonore by Valentino and Terraforma In New York

Lea Bertucci at L’Atelier Sonore at Valentino’s Midtown Manhattan location

text by Karly Quadros

In his 2012 book How Music Works, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne argues that over time, music and its technologies evolve to suit the spaces where people do their listening: the church organ’s bellows fill the cavernous chapel, the finely tuned bedroom pop of the 2010s nestles comfortably in one’s headphones. 

Lately, the fashion world has been dabbling in its own new experiments with music, style, and space, enlisting the help of sonic curators that inspire their own fervent devotion across the globe, like Terraforma and NTS Radio

Fashion and music have always been tightly bonded from the songs that soundtrack runway shows to the musicians sporting the latest collections. Early hints to the trend came when pioneering LA radio station Dublab released a capsule collection with Carhartt for their twenty-five year anniversary last year. Similarly, Crocs and the ominously lit Hör Berlin released a collaborative shoe in 2022; Adidas announced a collaboration with the collective the year after, featuring a broadcast from Adidas’ flagship store in Berlin with DJs Soyklo, Carmen Electro, Baugruppe90, and DJ Soulseek. Krakow’s own avant music festival Unsound has designed shirts in collaboration with Polish streetwear brand MISBHV and hosted a party with them in an abandoned railway station last year.

As the ways audiences discover music together continues to evolve in the digital age, so does the fashion world’s flirtation with musical communities and experiences that are more specific, intimate, and curated. 

On May 15, Valentino unveiled an intimate listening room at their Madison Avenue location in Midtown Manhattan, dubbed L’Atelier Sonore. The heavily curtained room lit with oranges and pinks was outfitted with sloping couches and an impressive sound system in the front, constructed by Francesco Lupia in collaboration with Terraforma, a collective that runs the cult classive Milanese experimental music festival of the same name. Lupia worked with impiallacciatura, a wood technique historically associated with Renaissance-era interiors. The result was something that felt opulent but modern.

“The idea was to build a sonic living room — intimate, soft, intentionally domestic. We were inspired by the Parisian salons of the early 20th century, spaces where literature, art, music, and conversation naturally converged,” said Ruggero Pietromarchi, one of Terraforma’s founders.

Over the course of the day, a small but impressive lineup of selectors took to the decks, spinning records The Loft-style, unmixed, from start to finish. There was downtown icon and New Age pioneer Laraaji, DJ and archival tape label Minimal Wave founder Veronica Vasicka, and Queens-based Nowadays resident Physical Therapy. Vibes were lush and meditative while not taking itself too seriously. Case and point? At one point, a “Careless Whisper” cover from unsung jazz hero Nancy Wilson was trotted out.

“Given the constant acceleration in our society, there’s a growing need for contemplative spaces and shared rituals. Listening requires stillness — it’s a focused, reflective act. The space was designed with that in mind: small, intimate, and free of distraction, to support attention and presence,” said Lupia.

Meanwhile in London, another fashion world plunge into hi-fi sounds was unfolding. Golden Sounds, a joint effort from Ugg and beloved Internet radio station NTS, filled two full days with programming. Panels, led by Saffron Records on Friday May 16 and NTS Radio on Saturday May 17, focused on everything from the basics of how to DJ to building your own sound system. Deep listening sets were curated, largely around South London’s jazz, R&B, and electronic scenes and featured artists like Goya Gumbani, dexter in the newsagent, Errol, and Alex Rita. There was a particular focus on sounds from London’s African and Caribbean diaspora communities: baile funk, hip hop, and soul.

For those used to going to the club for a specific producer for a particular energy, the historic importance of sound systems might not be readily apparent. Sound systems were a central feature of early dance music culture in Jamaica and the UK – often, the sound system itself was more of a draw than any one DJ or emcee. In ‘90s rave culture too, collectives and promotions would advertise on flyers the truly awesome power of their custom sound systems, often with flashy technobabble that had little to do with the actual mechanics of audio technology itself. For those that know and care about the cultural lineage of people dancing together in space, a sound system is the mothership, a monument to hedonistic release but also to the care, intention, and work that goes into bringing people together.

“It’s not just about what you hear, but how you inhabit the space while listening,” said Pietromarchi.

Golden Sounds’ events, held in an open air stone courtyard, were less cloistered than L’Atelier Sonore at Valentino but sought to capture a similar audience and atmosphere. After all, what else inspires the same devotion, obsession, and sense of exclusivity than underground music? DJs guard their rare white labels with a fervence verging on feverishness. In-the-know music fans are happy that artist broke into the mainstream but also know they used to be better (but really, how i’m feeling now will always be superior to brat.) The status, the symbols, the devotion to the archive – it’s attractive for fashion brands like Valentino and Ugg to seek out the kinds of audiences cultivated by Terraforma and NTS Radio particularly for their discerning taste and dedication.

Hi-fi spaces like these split the difference between deep listening on one’s headphones and a dance night out on the town. The question is, is having the time and access to such spaces becoming a luxury in and of itself? Like the historic sound systems from decades past, communities centered around music will persevere sometimes in resistance to and sometimes in tandem with larger cultural forces like fashion. In the meantime, it’s clear that, in a time like ours, the need for spaces that encourage deep, active listening are greater than ever before.

When asked if time and space to pause and listen had become a luxury, Pietromarchi answered honestly: “Yes — unfortunately, it often is. But I don’t believe it should be. Listening is a basic, vital act. That’s what spaces like L’Atelier Sonore try to offer: a kind of pause that isn’t passive, but active. A moment to re-centre.”

L'Atelier Sonore, an immersive listening room, is open daily through August at Valentino Madison Avenue.

The turntable at Valentino’s L’Atelier Sonore

Walk a Mile in Women's History Museum's Shoes

Image courtesy of Company Gallery

It was February 2024, and one model at the Women’s History Museum show couldn’t stop falling over. Determined, she trundled down the runway only to trip once again. The culprits were obvious: two enormous, cumbersome brown boxing gloves attached to the toes of classic stiletto. “Take them off!” cried members of the audience, a mixture of fashion insiders and queer iconoclasts. Still, the model made it to the end and hoisted the gloves in her hand, triumphant. K.O.

Unlike most New York footwear, the shoes of Women’s History Museum are not designed with functionality as a priority. In a city where pedestrians reign supreme and comfort is a must, the shoes of fashion label/art duo/vintage store curators Amanda McGowan and Mattie Rivkah Barringer are here to tell a story. Whether they’re white wedding heels bedazzled with a clatter of bones and colorful pills or gold boxing slippers rendered into precarious platforms by two wooden pillars, the shoes of Women’s History Museum exist in the sweet spot between strength and softness, power and precarity, barbarity and beauty.

Vintage remains an essential reference point for the duo. They maintain a carefully curated secondhand designer shop on Canal Street, sort of a modern-day SEX, stocked with everything from ‘80s Vivienne Westwood and ‘90s Gaultier to Edwardian furs and linens. In a similar style to early Alexander McQueen, Barringer and McGowan mine fashion references of the past – Victorian riding boots, rocking horse platforms, 70s crocodile skin clogs – for highly stylized fashion performances that entice as much as they reject traditional categories of beauty. The result is something that feels entirely 2025 in all its shredded, everything-out-in-the-open glory. Throughout Women History Museum’s nine staged collections, they return to similar references: animal prints and pelts; competitive sports, particularly boxing; and New York City, with the coins and shattered glass that cover the sidewalks. The clothes bare skin and barb it too.

Shoes, in many ways, remain the ultimate fetish object. They’re exalted, often the most expensive part of an outfit, yet they spend most of the day in contact with the filthy sidewalk. They’re civilizing, often constricting, and conceal the foot, which remains almost as hidden from public life as the body’s most nether regions. Shoes have often been used to control women as with painful and restrictive footbinding practices, yet their erotic potential is undeniable, as with the long, sensuous lines created in the body with a clear plastic pleaser. It’s no wonder that they served as the basis for Women’s History Museum’s latest show at Company Gallery, on display until June 21. Autre caught up with Barringer and McGowan to talk stilettos, surrealism, and the seriously sinister parts of living – and walking – in New York City. Read more.

A Peek Inside Miu Miu’s Exclusive NYC Installation

Tales and Tellers explored the state of modern femininity for Frieze New York 2025.

Image courtesy of Daniel Salemi/Miu Miu


text by Karly Quadros


Last Friday during Frieze, New York, Miu Miu convened a who’s who of the international fashion and art worlds for the second edition of Tales and Tellers, an immersive performance and installation exploring modern femininity through style, performance, and film. 

Partygoers ducked out of the rain and bluster into Chelsea’s Terminal Warehouse, a cavernous late-19th-century industrial space teeming with New York City history. It was once home to the infamous Tunnel Nightclub, founded by Peter Gatien who also owned the Limelight and Palladium, and was a beloved haunt of the Club Kids as well as New York’s iconic 90’s hip hop scene. Back in the day, the side rooms of the hangar were lavishly decorated according to theme – a Victorian library in one, an S&M dungeon in another – so it was fitting that Tales and Tellers, which brought Miu Miu’s fashion to life through staged tableauxs, found its home here.

Drawing on her longstanding collaboration with Miu Miu, Polish-born interdisciplinary artist Goshka Macuga used Miu Miu’s archive of short films by female directors as inspiration for the piece. Since 2011, the films – which have included the work of Janicza Bravo, Miranda July, Ava Duvernay, and Mati Diop, and have sometimes accompanied Miu Miu’s runway shows – have explored the authentic lives of women worldwide; mothers, daughters, performers, dreamers, lovers, skaters, and rebels buck social convention in their searches for identity. Miuccia Prada and Macuga first united all the films for Art Basel Paris in October 2024. The show was an unexpected hit, drawing 11,000 visitors over just five days. 

This second edition, convened by Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of the MACBA in Barcelona, was indebted to Miu Miu’s rich archive of fashion and curatorial efforts. The dim tunnel-like space was outfitted with screens from tiny mounted smartphones to hefty LED plinths, all playing one of the three dozen female-directed films commissioned by the fashion house. Guests trickled in, sipping champagne and leafing through the Truthless Times newspaper, a remnant from Macuga’s last installation with Miu Miu, Salt Looks like Sugar, which served as the backdrop for their Spring/Summer 2025 runway show. Notable attendees included Alexa Chung, Sara Paulson, Chase Sui Wonders, Paloma Elsesser, Ella Emhoff, Kiki Layne, Pauline Chalamet, and Cazzie David.

One by one, performers outfitted in archival Miu Miu began to roam the space as well. One performer shadow boxed in bejeweled tap shorts. Another in a red dress haltingly performed a standup comedy routine about, what else, but failed love, Plan B, and thoughts of death (one waiter carrying a tray of empty champagne flutes giggled, despite himself.) Several performers sang and danced, while yet another sculpted with Play-Doh in front of a stop motion animation, yet not every tableaux felt so joyous. One woman in a bell-shaped yellow coat, crept along the sidelines, a gas mask strapped to her face. Another in a grey wool skirt suit stared longingly at her screen from a cage. The entire performance culminated in an ecstatic dance party in the center of the room: women, moving and playing freely in a space once known as a haven for self-expression.

The dark, moody atmosphere of surveillance, punctuated by roving spotlights, evoked the troubled times we live in. After all, what feels more true to 2025 then trying to just go about your daily life – putting on makeup, working at the office, playing dress up – while something more sinister presses in? As one performer brandished newspapers and called out, fruitlessly, about “disrupting reality” and “digital malfunction,” the others continued their rituals of self, care, and creativity. This is the state of modern womanhood, after all. What else is there to do?

Image courtesy of Daniel Salemni/Miu Miu

Explore the New Collab From Artist Sonya Sombreuil, Underground Cartoonist R Crumb, and Fetish Photographer Eric Kroll

text by Karly Quadros

For a certain kind of weirdo, R. Crumb is a god. The grandfather of underground comix, his work teems with a highly specific dirty-little-bugger-ness that hit just as 1960s San Francisco counterculture was getting into full swing. He defined a sickly funny visual language that inspired the likes of ‘90s alt comic anti-heroes like Daniel Clowes and Jamie Hewlett as well as painters like Louise Bonnet and Nicole Eisenman. In his cartoons, Crumb depicts himself as a combination of ornery, neurotic, and randy, chasing down (or fleeing in terror from) Catholic schoolgirls with chubby thighs and languorous hippie chicks with their asses hanging out of their bell bottoms. His fetishes are unmistakable; a Crumb girl exists in a category all her own. 

His other character creations share similar cult status. Mr. Natural, a guru with a Santa Claus beard and a priapic nose, was a great dispenser of ‘60s absurdist wisdom, while his relentlessly bootlegged Keep on Truckin’ cartoon fetches prices in the hundreds if you manage to find a vintage t-shirt carrying its image. Perhaps nothing captures Crumb’s signature cocktail of sleazy satire like his comic strip Fritz the Cat about an unrepentantly hedonistic hipster tabby cat. An X-rated film adaptation of the comic strip from cult animator Ralph Bakshi was released in 1972; Crumb was so worked up over creative differences with the filmmakers that he immediately killed off the beloved Fritz, dispatched by a scorned ex-girlfriend who stabbed him in the back of the head with an ice pick.In recent years, the art world has grown to embrace Crumb’s work a little more. A 1994 documentary by Terry Zweigoff on Crumb brought his work to a larger audience, and he’s now represented by David Zwirner. Crumb’s notebooks, full of obscene jokes and intrusive thoughts, sell for around a million dollars each. On display is his adamant lack of self-censorship but also a technically dense, exuberantly gestural personal style.

Sonya Sombreuil, artist and founder of the LA streetwear brand Come Tees, has found a muse in R. Crumb, inspiring a limited collection of t-shirts, panties, and long sleeves emblazoned with Crumb’s artwork. The collection’s campaign is shot by legendary fetish photographer Eric Kroll who, in addition to his landmark “Sex Objects” series has also shot Robert Mapplethorpe, Grace Jones, Madonna, Kenneth Anger, and Andy Warhol. Sombreuil was joined by Dan Nadel whose biography, Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, is out April 15. The two discussed Crumb, fetish, photography, and flesh. Read more.

Watch Y-3's SS25 Campaign Film from Moni Haworth and Petra Collins

Moni Haworth and Petra Collins have always focused on the liminal spaces of American suburbs: teenage dreams confined to bedrooms, silhouettes pressed against Venetian blinds, cut-and-paste condos spiraling down culs-de-sacs like soap in a drain. The two longtime collaborators have teamed up once again for the campaign of another collaboration, Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas’ Y-3 Spring/Summer 2025 collection. From the simultaneously sporty and delicate Regu Mary Jane to Petra’s doppelgängers, duality takes centerstage. Autre caught up with Moni Haworth to talk about crafting the dreamy world of Y-3’s new collection. Read more.

Holly Blakey Premieres A Wound With Teeth and Phantom at Queen Elizabeth Hall

A Lyrical Meditation on Memory, Loss, and the Mythology of the Self

Holly Blakey: A Wound with Teeth & Phantom. Photo Credit: Natasha Back

text by Lara Monro

This April, choreographer and director Holly Blakey returns to London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with the UK premiere of A Wound With Teeth and Phantom—a poetic double bill that moves through the fragile space between remembering and forgetting, intimacy and distance, body and absence. Following their world premiere in Paris, these works arrive charged with raw intensity and emotional precision, further cementing Blakey’s status as one of the most vital voices in contemporary movement.

Blakey’s work resists easy categorization—existing in the liminal space between film and stage, commercial and avant-garde, sensual and sacred. Known for her signature blend of tactile immediacy and cinematic movement, she has choreographed for Florence and the Machine, Rosalía, and Harry Styles while creating radical live performance works at institutions like the Southbank Centre. Her choreography is a language of desire, distortion, and dissolution.

A recipient of a UK MVA Award for Best Choreography (Florence and the Machine’s Delilah) and a nominee for Best New Director, Blakey has collaborated with Gucci, Burberry, and Dior while cultivating a singular performance vocabulary. Her return to Queen Elizabeth Hall follows the five-year evolution of Cowpuncher and its sequels—culminating in a sold-out Royal Festival Hall performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra.

A Wound With Teeth

How do we reconstruct ourselves in the absence of memory? In A Wound With Teeth, Blakey unflinchingly explores forgetting—not as loss, but as a space for reinvention. Dancers navigate a world on the brink of collapse, summoning monsters, myths, and fragmented selves in place of what has been erased. Inspired by Blakey’s own experience with memory loss, the piece unfolds like a fever dream—part elegy, part invocation—hovering between the rational and the uncanny.

Phantom

If A Wound With Teeth is an act of forgetting, Phantom is a ritual of remembrance. Ten dancers move with aching precision through a liminal space of grief and endurance, their bodies caught in a choreography that feels like sacred rite. Set to an atmospheric score by Gwilym Gold and costumed by Chopova Lowena, Phantom transforms the pain of Blakey’s personal experience with miscarriage into a visceral, collective reckoning. It is not about healing, but confrontation—a raw engagement with the weight of what we carry and the echoes we cannot silence.

This double bill marks a deepening of Blakey’s artistic vision—starker, more intimate, and defiantly vulnerable. Both works exist in the space beyond language, where memory is fluid and the body archives feeling.

Part performance, part séance, A Wound With Teeth and Phantom offer no easy catharsis. Instead, they leave us suspended—in awe, in discomfort, in recognition. A necessary, unflinching experience from one of choreography’s most transgressive and transcendent voices.

Holly Blakey: A Wound with Teeth & Phantom. Photo Credit: Natasha Back

Premiering at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre from April 9–11 in London.

Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen Wants to Bring You In From the Cold

Models at the Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen runway show at Performance Space.
Photo credit: Colin Savercool

text by Karly Quadros


In botany, a vespertine flower is one that only opens in the evening. From Angel’s trumpet to flowering tobacco to night-blooming jasmine, these flowers are often white or pale in color and are only fragrant in the late hours, beckoning nighttime creatures like moths and fruit bats. With her fall 2025 ready-to-wear collection, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen has taken this lesson from nature — some things only bloom in darkness.

With her latest runway show lit only by candlelight, Whalen’s work is a celebration of the intimate, the domestic, fantastical sensuality, and an avant approach to fashion. She hand drafts and sews her garments from a shiver of wintery fabrics, all vintage and reclaimed, like tea-stained linens, lace, thermals, and quilted wool blankets. This is not to say that all Whalen’s clothing is sleepy and delicate. Models carried spiraled purses, strode in hoop skirts and panniers reminiscent of 16th century court fashion, and donned hammered armor constructed from vintage serving plates. Whalen said she wanted to show armor, not as a pristine suit presented in a museum, but as it would be returning home from war. To me, her armor has an even world-wearier quality, like ancient coins excavated from Roman soil.

Still, there is a distinct sense of coziness to her work. On a day like the February afternoon of Whalen’s New York Fashion Week on-calendar debut, when thin rays of sunlight melt snow into huddles of slush, the clothing did exactly what Whalen intended: it brought us inside from the cold. The show, held in a black box theater at Performance Space in the East Village, was the latest in a run of ritualistic runway shows that break through the breathless pace of Fashion Week and New York living as a whole.

“We were working against the tide, prioritizing things like ritual and intentionality in a city that is super fast, in a time that wants to gobble everything up and consolidate. It’s not the easiest thing in the world. My mom thinks I’m crazy,” said Whalen.

Whalen’s signature gesture is a gentle coil along the body, like a resting bird curling its head beneath its wing. It appears in puffy bombers constructed from quilted spirals and in sculptural padding beneath draped skirts. It’s in corset boning and the arches of wooden sandals, constructed with the help of her partner, a woodworker. The collection evokes elements of Bjork’s iconic swan dress, designed by Macedonian designer Marjan Pejoski, that she wore to the 73rd Academy Awards at a time when the Icelandic singer was delving into her own chilly explorations of domesticity and private loves.

Whalen became fascinated by this spiral motif when she took weekly life drawing classes while she was getting her master’s degree. “Every nipple, belly button, knee, hip, shoulder, I would make a little spiral with my hand,” she explained. Eventually the shape moved beyond the body when she crafted a spiraling labyrinth from soil that her models traversed for her spring 2024 ready-to-wear collection. 

Because she crafts all of her garments herself, Whalen sees her clothing as an extension of an artistic practice. For Whalen, fashion is “a form of sculpture in relation to the body, which is what I think is so special about it and why it can be such an emotional communicator.” Her bona fides reflect her journey towards a more holistic approach to fashion. She studied fashion design at FIT, Parsons, and Central Saint Martins, before cutting her teeth with labels eschewing the borders between fashion and art including Eckhaus Latta.

Some influences run much deeper, however. Take, for instance, Whalen’s reverence for craft. “I learned to sew from an amazing quilter named Laura in Arlington, Massachusetts and from McCall patterns on my home sewing machine, surrounded by all of these other women who just loved to quilt,” said Whalen. “It has this deep history as this thing that was relegated to being women’s work, but I think we can use that knowledge to a place where we have deeper respect for it as a craft.”

Whalen points out that in contemporary times, most clothing is based on patterns from the Industrial Revolution when nearly all aspects of life from clothing to the home were being reinvented in order to make more productive workers. The design of clothing — shape, fabric, restrictiveness — always invites different ways of living. The rise of sportswear in the 1930s signaled a world in which women had more mobility, physically as well as socially and financially. Meanwhile, as Jia Tolentino pointed out in a 2018 essay for the New Yorker, modern athleisure encourages women to be perpetually optimizing themselves and their lifestyles.

What ways of living does Whalen’s clothing invite? With her emphasis on craft, women’s spaces, and romantic shapes like tea dresses and corsets, one might be inclined to call it ‘domestic.’ We’ve seen the rise of a deeply political conversation around gender and the home, as exemplified in the stylistic (and financial) prominence of the trad wife, but Whalen suggests a much more nuanced understanding of the domestic. For one, Whalen’s work is hardly restrictive, and she presents her work on models from a wide range of genders, races, and ages. For another, her practice is more expansive, billowing fabrics to invite play, ritualistic runway shows to invite slowness.

Her upbringing was a bit crunchy granola, complete with a hippie “non-school” that was all about treating youth with the same integrity as adults. “My mom raised me, before it was in the zeitgeist, in this very Earth-centered, pagan spirituality kind of way. She was a member of a women’s circle and we’d celebrate the wheel of the year and May Day and the solstices. We did the Maypole. I’ve been reading tarot for more than half my life.”

Perhaps most important to Whalen is technique and craft. To her, these are the key to longevity in a garment, both in its construction and in someone’s willingness to hold onto it and take good care of it. She taught herself to hand-dip and shape the gnarled candles that lit her most recent runway. She stained her garments with rust and tea. She even built the workbenches in her studio. Her time teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design has further cemented her reverence for sewing and the intimacy of passing down that knowledge through the generations. She says moving forward, she’ll continue to embrace new techniques. 

“That’s why I’m able to continue diving into wax and woodworking and ceramics and metalsmithing. I have no business doing these things. But why not just try? I love being in the space of continuing to question everything.”

Zoe Whalen blows out over one hundred candles to close out the day’s show.
Photo credit: Colin Savercool

The Debut Runway Shows That Shook Up New York Fashion Week

text by Karly Quadros

This year New York Fashion Week saw a few high profile returns including Calvin Klein, helmed by Veronica Leoni, after six and half years and Joseph Altazzura, back from paternity leave. But, as more labels have decamped for Paris in recent years, NYFW has become about the rising stars making their debuts on the official CFDA schedule. This year’s class of newcomers runs the gamut from ethereal hand-sewn art-cum-fashion to a campy take on jock fare. The result is a picture of American fashion that’s more diverse than ever.

Gabe Gordon

Gabe Gordon lives for the drama. Specifically, the elaborate backstories he concocts for each successive collection, equal parts queer coming of age story and teen horror romp. Beginning with his off-schedule show at the New Design High School last September, Gordon brings a campy take on preppy jock fashion that makes the homoerotic subtext of early 2000s Abercrombie and Fitch campaigns, well, text.

This time around, Gabe Gordon is scaling up. In addition to his signature hole-riddled, curve-hugging sweaters and dresses, he introduced bodysuits in rugby stripes and flouncy cheerleader skirts. The collection, inspired by a midcentury fantasia about a girl’s dance troupe that kidnap and torment the boy’s wrestling team, had a distinct athleisure tinge to it, pairing sweatsuits with blunt 60s wigs. Arch sexuality suffused the entire event, from latex stockings and exposed bullet bras to pom-poms that looked an awful lot like floggers. New York City painter Sasha Gordon (who walked Gordon’s runway last season) contributed a painting printed on graphic tees depicting herself rocking a corseted mini dress with princess sleeves from the new collection.

LeBlanc Studios

The New York Fashion Week debut of Dominican label LeBlanc Studios has been a long time in the making. Founded 11 years ago by Angelo Beato and Yamil Arbaje, LeBlanc isn’t afraid to pull back the curtain to explore the power structures that belie not just the fashion industry but Big Tech and global wealth. Models strode down a catwalk covered in salt to scripted monologues for the latest collection, boldly titled ‘Other People’s Money.’ It’s hard not to see the collection as a meditation on the ways in which the Global South and especially Latin America has come to shoulder the more unsavory elements of the fashion industry from maquiladoras in Mexico where women toil for just a few dollars a day to deserts piled with textile waste in Chile. 

The clothing, however, was a celebration of Latin American identity, drawing on the aesthetics of Latin American films from the 60s and 70s. Suits with dagger collars and flared trousers were paired with fraying button ups, newsboy caps, and bucket hats in rich shades of chartreuse, ochre, peach, and emerald. Workwear is the obvious reference point, but the tailoring and lush knits recall the luxuriously laid back style of 1970s Greensleeves Records stars. 

Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen

There is a reverence, a kind of worship, to the handcrafted garments that Zoe Whalen brings to the runway. Last season, her models walked a recursive labyrinth sculpted out of dirt (in another twist of pagan reverence, viewers were encouraged to bring the soil home in their gift bags.) This year at Performance Space in the East Village, the black box was lit only by a small mound of hand-dipped candles and soundtracked with an ambient composition from Silas Edgar, adding to the monastic energy. It was dark. It was moody. To see the clothes, you needed to squint.

This is just the kind of atmosphere of careful attention that Whalen strives to create. The clothing draws from a wide array of historical references from Victorian crinolines and corsetry to hammered medieval armor to 18th-century gowns that are all pleats and bustle. Made entirely of vintage and deadstock fabrics like tea towels and thermals, there were wax-dipped tops and tea-stained trousers, and draped and quilted outerwear that added a much needed winter coziness. Soft sculptural elements still dominate, and the collection is more wearable art than commercial product. Still, some pieces like Whalen’s curlicue wool handbags have the potential to become this season’s obsession.

Vettese

Vettese is one of the youngest labels on the schedule this year, with just two years under designer Kari Vettese’s belt. And while New York Fashion Week may not scream tube dresses and sandals, the designer made her case for barely-there jersey, bringing her Italian-American by way of Southern California charm. There are plenty of skin tight tube tops (including one in the green, white, and red of the Italian flag and in the shape of the country to boot) and knotty horizontal scarves. But the collection also shows off the more structural side of Vettese’s aesthetic including leather jackets cropped at the waist and tailored trousers.

Slinky, sexy, and distinctly 80s in a way that never seems to go out of style in Italy – it’s no wonder that celebrities have been flocking to Vettese’s work in the last few years from Charli XCX (who wore a custom Vettese skirt during her Glasgow show on the brat arena tour) to Florence Pugh and Kylie Jenner. It’s almost enough to convince you that a steamy Mediterranean summer could be right around the corner.

Jeremy Scott and Katherine Bernhardt's exhibition brings Pop, Play and Pure exuberance to Kansas City

 
 

text by Poppy Baring

“It’s F-U-N—that’s it, that’s all it is”

These are the words rapper A$AP Rocky once used to describe fashion designer Jeremy Scott. This sentiment naturally extends to contemporary artist Katherine Bernhardt’s work, but are these artist’s works merely playful or do they carry greater significance? In their new exhibition “A Match Made in Heaven,” Scott’s designs are partnered with their Bernhardt equivalent, producing a maximalist fun-filled world full of exuberant color and pop culture references. Although the pair were both born in Missouri in 1975, they met for the first time in November 2023 when the Executive Director of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, JoAnne Northrup, noticed their commonalities. This exhibition, taking place in Overland Park, Kansas near where both of these artists grew up, is the first to explore the shared references in Scott and Bernhardt's work. 

Thirty-five of Bernhardt's energetic paintings are punctuated by one hundred of Scott’s looks from his archive, including those made under his namesake brand and those designed during his time at Moschino. The use of consumer and popular culture symbols in these works act as vessels for the artist's shared sense of irreverent humor which leaves audiences questioning whether they are examples of sophisticated satire or just dramatic up-endings of today’s cultural standards. For Bernhardt, the use of iconic symbols like McDonald’s golden arches, the Pink Panther, cigarettes and Doritos simply comes down to their shape and color. They allow her to fill canvases with combinations of these shapes making infinite paintings that all feel like a complete thought made in a stream of riotous consciousness. Starting with spray paint, Bernhardt first outlines her composition before taking her canvas to the floor where she uses watered-down acrylics to freely cover her characters and shapes; creating vibrant patterns. 

Jeremy Scotts has also been known to avoid over-complication. Often letting emotion guide his practice, it is not that his work is anti-intellectual but that ‘rational’ is not part of his creative vocabulary. Whether Scott’s work has loftier inspirations than Coca-Cola, for example, or not, his success in the fashion industry is undeniable. So much so that his work is now weaved into many celebrity moments including Britney Spears's “Toxic” music video and the video for Lady Gaga’s song “Paparazzi;” showing that his love for pop culture is very much mutual.

Both Scott’s and Bernhardt’s works are also inspired and reflective of their environments. In Bernhardt’s case, she grew up in a home filled with color and throughout her career, having completed residencies across the globe, has picked up imagery from her vicinity. The use of coffee and cigarettes in her work, for example, is heavily influenced by the New York delis that surround her where she currently lives and works. In terms of Jeremy Scott’s designs, his fanboy take on pop culture seemed increasingly spot-on as social media exploded. So while they may both be fully immersed in an unapologetically vibrant world, inspired by nostalgic Americana, Scott and Bernhardt’s work can tell us a lot about our current climate while also providing a much-needed escape.

A Match Made in Heaven is open through August 3 at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas. 

Remember The Future: Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2025 Men’s Collection

Louis Vuitton’s Fall-Winter 2025 Men’s Collection, unveiled during Paris Fashion Week, represents a calculated exploration of the boundaries between luxury and streetwear. Spearheaded by Pharrell Williams, Louis Vuitton’s Men’s Creative Director, alongside Japanese designer Nigo, the collection is a carefully constructed dialogue between heritage craftsmanship and the cultural vibrancy of contemporary fashion. The collection's most striking feature is its ability to harmonize seemingly disparate elements. Varsity jackets, with their bold, nostalgic presence, are reimagined with intricate detailing that elevates them from casual wear to high fashion. Tailored suits, traditionally seen as symbols of rigidity and formality, are imbued with a modern energy, pairing unexpected textures and relaxed silhouettes. Cherry blossom motifs—subtle yet evocative—thread through the collection, grounding it in a sense of delicate refinement often associated with Japanese artistry. This synthesis of aesthetics reflects the creative sensibilities of Williams and Nigo, both of whom have built their careers on the ability to bridge the cultural and stylistic divides between the East and West. Their partnership feels both intuitive and precise, leveraging Nigo's roots in Japanese streetwear and Pharrell’s broader, global perspective on music, art, and fashion. The show itself was a statement. Staged in a the historic Cour Carrée du Louvre, it mirrored not only the collection’s theme of duality but also the house’s commitment to presenting fashion as a form of cultural spectacle.

Challenging the Gaze: A Photographic Homage to Sofonisba Anguissola by Arale Reartes & Saskia Schmidt


photography by
Arale Reartes c/o Magali Mgmt
styling by
Saskia Schmidt
Models
Uzu at NEU 
Happy, Steve & Louis at IZAIO 
makeup and hair by
Berenice Ammann
casting by
Cameron Niedrick
movement by
Leonardo D'Aquino
production by
Magali Mgmt 
photography assistant
Brenda Vazquez
production assistant
Dominik Graf
stylist assistant
Denys Sadovyi & Kamal Emanga
Location scout by
Marco Wagner

Arale is wearing Haderlump leather pants.
Steve is wearing Miu Miu longsleeve and Fendi pants.
Lou is wearing Miu Miu longsleeve and Avenir pants.

Sofonisba Anguissola, one of the first female Renaissance painters to gain recognition, created a celebrated self-portrait during a time when women were often confined to the role of muses. To avoid openly challenging the patriarchal norms of her era, Anguissola rendered her self-portrait such that it appears as though she, the subject, is being painted by her master.

This photographic editorial draws inspiration from Anguissola’s work and reflects on the persistence of social limitations that, centuries later, continue to relegate women to secondary roles—as muses or caregivers—creating discomfort when we occupy spaces of power and artistic creation.

Just as Anguissola defied expectations through her painting, this photographic self-portrait series by Arale Reartes plays with the ambiguity of the act of portrayal. Although these are self-portraits, the male figures also hold remote triggers, deliberately creating confusion about the identity of the author and the subject. This ambiguity invites the viewer to question not only who the true creator of the image, but also to challenge preconceived ideas about women’s place in art and society.

Arale is wearing Paloma Wool dress.
Lou is wearing Our Legacy blazer and William Fan pants.
Uzu is wearing Coach coat and Avenir pants.

Arale is wearing Haderlump dress.
Happy is wearing Coach shirt and Fendi pants.

Arale is wearing Milk of Lime bra and Falke tights.
Lou is wearing Avenir pants.

Arale is wearing Milk of Lime skirt and Haderlump jacket.
Lou is wearing full look by William Fan.
Uzu is wearing full look by Haderlump.
Happy is wearing William Fan shirt and Fendi pants.

Arale is wearing Haderlump dress.
Lou is wearing Namilia coat. 
Uzu is wearing a Joseph skirt and Coach blazer. 
Steve is wearing Chenaski pants and Namilia blazer.
Happy is wearing Namilia pants and Our Legacy Jacket.

Prada Group and UNFPA Celebrated the Completion of Their Fashion Training Program in Mexico

 
 

Prada Group and UNFPA celebrated the completion of their first-of-its-kind fashion training program "Fashion Expressions: The Stories She Wears" in Mexico with an intimate event to highlight the milestones that the artisans achieved during the six-month period.  

The training program implemented by UNFPA Mexico provides women with valuable knowledge and practical skills in the fashion industry while promoting women’s empowerment and sexual reproductive health. The expansion of the program to Querétaro state (Mexico) was initiated in September 2023. 

The project involved thirty women artisans in Querétaro state, from Indigenous and surrounding communities with experience in weaving and embroidery, to strengthen their technical, artistic, and financial skills. 

The participants – embroiderers and weavers between 18 and 50 years old – were mothers who work as artisans in small family-run home workshops, usually with the help of their children, supporting their families through the sale of artisanal items at Querétaro’s local markets.

The evening included a panel discussion, titled Doing great things together!, on the experiences and learnings from the program as well as its impact in the context of the wider fashion industry. Moderated by Farah Slim, Head of Editorial Content of Glamour México y Latinoamérica, the panel included Mariarosa Cutillo, Chief of Strategic Partnerships of UNFPA, Galo Bertin, fashion designer and Program Advisor, Adriana Barrón, artisan (San Juan del Río, Querétaro), Estela Porfirio, artisan (Amealco, Querétaro), Emilienne Limón, Mexico Artisan Program Advisor of Nest. 

After the initial opening remarks and the panel discussion, guests explored an exhibition that showcased twenty designs from the artisans, which they created during the program.

Bitter & Sweet by Emi Iguchi & Camille Ange Pailler

 

Sia Arnika velvet dress
Untitled Lab x Sia Arnika leather boots
Von Dutch cap
Wolford leopard tights

 

photography by Emi Iguchi
styling by
Camille Ange Pailler
hair and makeup by 
Janette Peters
casting direction by
Ananya Nisbet
model
Lilja Drab via @elf_mgmt
photo assistance by
Heinrich Wrede
styling assistance by 
Nadine Sham 

Katharina Dubrick knit wool top and mittens
Lina Nix skirt

Sia Arnika jumpsuit
Olivia Ballard bomber jacket
Lina Nix tutu skirt

 
 

Von Dutch cap
Sia Arnika velvet dress

Celine denim hooded jacket and shorts
Our Legacy t-shirt
Sia Arnika x Untitled Lab leather boots
Wolford leopard tights

 

Malene Specht jacket
Celine short

Celine short
Wolford leopard tights

 

Olivia Ballard bomber jacket

Sia Arnika jumpsuit
Olivia Ballard bomber jacket
Lina Nix tutu skirt

 
 

Valentino dress and sandals

Malene Specht jacket
Celine short
Sia Arnika x Untitled Lab leather boots

 
 

Cissel Dubrick shirt
Olivia Ballard shirt

Valentino dress

 
 

Cissel Dubrick shirt
Olivia Ballard shirt

 
 
 

Celine Announces New Fragrance Zouzou With Campaign Featuring Esther-Rose McGregor

Zouzou is the new opus in the Celine Haute Parfumerie collection initiated in 2019. It comes to join the eleven perfumes conceived by Hedi Slimane for the launch of the line. all of them are in keeping with the tradition of the "couturier parfumeur" and recapture the excellence of french haute parfumerie. the collection is comprised of twelve creations to date. With Zouzou finding its place in the day collection.

GENDERQUAKE Is A Temporal Distillation of Fashion's Evolution @ SCAD Museum of Art for SCAD deFINE ART 2024

An ode to the evolution of fashion from the 20th century to the present day, GENDERQUAKE: Liberation, Appropriation, Rejection represents the progression of the fashion protagonist through time. The group exhibition is an amalgamation of fashion’s trending extremes, representing the strategic placement of garment on the body. The show assigns nuance to the body in form and the way clothing chooses to rest. The corporeal identity celebrates the dynamic nature of gender; its emphasis lies in the multiplicity of form and operation with the growing milieu. Light is strategically implemented here; coloration is obscured and distorted recurrently so that color takes preference over form and form takes precedence over color. We are led to examine the multidimensionality of attire in its own context. The augmentations of light are fleeting; the shift is gradual, but with each minute transposition one is delicately subdued into another reality, another dimension, to another way of seeing. We move linearly through time and metaphysically through light. GENDERQUAKE epitomizes fashion’s unique relationship to timelessness.

GENDERQUAKE is guest-curated by Stefano Tonchi with Marta Franceschini and presented as part of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) deFINE ART 2024 through June 24.

All images courtesy of SCAD.

Balenciaga Announces Music Series Collaboration With The Late American Composer Angelo Badalamenti

Balenciaga announces its Music Series collaboration with late award-winning American composer and arranger Angelo Badalamenti. An original playlist that was hand-selected by Badalamenti featuring a compilation of his own works will be available to stream or download at balenciaga.com/angelobadalamenti. Simultaneously, a series of limited-edition Balenciaga Music | AngeloBadalamenti merch will be available in selected stores and on balenciaga.com. The playlist, merchandise series, and campaign will also announce a partnership with Manhattan School of Music, the conservatory where Badalamenti received his bachelor’s and master’s degree, and composition department head Dr. Reiko Fueting. As an homage to Badalamenti that in turn teaches students about his impressive oeuvre, this partnership involves the creation of a dedicated master class that invites participants to compose inspired original works to continue the late composer’s legacy. The masterclass, sponsored by Balenciaga, will be offered gratis for students currently attending Manhattan School of Music.

XIMONLEE's AW24 Collection Looks at Cloth As A Language in Wrapping

 
 


photography by
Xie Wenhao
styling by
DeSe Escobar
styling assistance by
Rebecca Rendina
hair by
Ushka Nochi Tela
beauty by
DeSe Escobar
casting by
Jose Maria

From Japanese bondage art to traditional gift wrapping, XIMONLEE’s Autumn Winter 2024 collection takes eclectic inspirations and incorporates them into elegant day-to-day wear. As a general principal, the brand is committed to approaching its research by exploring disparate extremities in pursuit of a romantic wardrobe for all genders.

We can see a continuation of the brand’s signature leather coats and jackets with their chain-lock design and their oversized lapels with a handcrafted crease effect in the outerwear. The womenswear addresses drapery in ways that are at times classical and at others coquettish, wrapping the body like a present so as to gently play with notions of restraint. From lightweight maxi skirts and deconstructed gowns, to tops that are made for all occasions. After several seasons of exploring gender-neutral characteristics, the new collection marks the merging of masculine and feminine images within the brand’s discreet yet innovative aesthetic. 

Pipenco Lorena's Knitted Gowns Are A Delicate Homage to Her Mother's Post-Communist Immigration


photography by
Kelli McGuire
creative direction and styling by Neptune Quek
set design by
Lane Vineyard
makeup by
Shoko Kodama
styling assistance by
Madison Lynn
talent
Millie Dunstan & Emma Deegan

The maternal determination to provide a life of opportunity for her post-Communist kin is woven with care into every stitch of Pipen Colorena’s knitwear gowns and slippers. Her newest collection is a delicate transmogrification of her family’s lived experience of immigrating from Romania to London, a push and pull between the pride and struggle of embracing a new chapter while mourning all that’s left behind.

Colorena takes inspiration from the creative exercises her grandmother developed for her as a child while her mother was away at work. After drawing a row of women in dresses on the page, her grandmother would challenge the young designer-to-be to find inventive ways of coloring and elaborating on them based on the various women within their community. Harkening those early mental souvenirs, a coquettish play with the memory of their softness, kindness, and flamboyant nature gives shape and dimension to each and every piece.

There is also a heavy dose of Romanian cinema and art from the 1970s imbued in the gowns, giving them a very personal sense of romantic nostalgia. Finally, to complement the elegant construction of finely knitted fabric, there are moments of conspicuous unraveling—a candid omission of subjection to struggle, the hardship inherent in the process of immigration and assimilation. It is an ode to the fortitude of a mother and a future generation made stronger by the crucible of passion and hardship.

 
 

Balenciaga Music, Curated by Artistic Director Demna, Provides A Unique Sartorial and Auditory Experience

On November 20th, 2023, Balenciaga announced the next phase of Balenciaga Music, curated by artistic director Demna. The initiative aims to provide a comprehensive music experience through innovative formats. The project features Archive, an English group with a 28-year history in electronic, trip-hop, post- and progressive rock. Archive created an exclusive 8.5-minute track, "Patterns," and a 7-hour playlist for Balenciaga.

The unique aspect of "Patterns" is its exclusive availability through an NFC chip embedded in limited-edition Balenciaga Music | Archive merchandise. Buyers can unlock an original listening event by scanning the chip with a smartphone. The interactive garments, including T-shirts and hoodies displaying Archive's discography, will be sold in selected Balenciaga stores worldwide and online.

This collaboration represents a first for both Archive and Balenciaga, as Archive has never worked with a fashion brand, and Balenciaga has never premiered music through a product. Alongside the exclusive track, Archive curated a 7-hour playlist available on a new Balenciaga Music hub on balenciaga.com, linking to various streaming services.

Darius Keeler, a founding member of Archive, emphasized the alignment of values between Balenciaga and Archive, emphasizing individuality and innovation. The project expands Balenciaga Music by introducing entirely new music tailored to Balenciaga's audience, coupled with a technically advanced merch series for accessing the music.