Within the West Finish Museum in Boston, on a wet Sunday afternoon, Boston’s most trendy crowd flocked to see Fierce Types Menswear Style present — Boston’s first all-menswear present, as part of Boston Style Week. Organized by Cheryl Jean of RegiJames Manufacturing, who additionally had a clothes line on the runway, the present introduced collectively designers from Boston and the encircling Northeast with the hopes of constructing Boston one other main metropolis for vogue alongside New York, Paris, London, and Milan. Every present had between 9 and 13 seems and fashions of various races, nationalities, and genders, disrupting how menswear is usually approached.
The present began robust with the avant-garde designer Probability by Probability. Past the garments themselves, accompanying Afrobeats, R&B, and hip-hop music set the stage for the night time. The primary look on the runway was a black crop-top hoodie embroidered with flowers and paired with purple leggings. That was adopted up by a pair of denims with purple and pink tassels operating down the perimeters, flowing like a curtain, in addition to a black costume with upside-down purple skulls that was reduce right into a checkered sample on the backside.
The theme of Probability by Probability’s present was embroidery and acid wash, and the subsequent look featured embroidered denims with gold and blue designs on the skin and sunflowers and purple lilies on the within. The next three seems various from black and pink acid-wash hoodies to acid-washed neon blue and inexperienced denims. The penultimate look was a standout from Probability by Probability — a sequined embroidered teal and black blazer with two stained glass portraits of the Virgin Mary stitched to the again, harking back to Who Decides Battle.
The final look was a black zip-up hoodie with a black-and-white image of a lady’s face. The zip design was probably the most fascinating side of the look, as there have been two zips on the jacket: The primary was a zig-zag jacket that went throughout the physique from the left neck to the precise underarm, and the second was a zipper on the again of the coat that scaffolded the again arms and shoulders.
The second present belonged to Viezoe LifeStyle, a Haitian-born Bostonian who began out as a tattoo artist who turned his designs and inventive sensibilities into making and designing garments. Patterns along with his emblem had been the theme of Viezoe LifeStyle’s present, as every look contained a repetition of that sample — much like the Dior Indirect sample. Beginning with the sample in blue and black on a pair of sweatpants and a duffel bag, the sample was then replicated onto a button-up collared T-shirt, a puffer trench coat jacket, and a number of other baggage and different clothes.
After Viezoe LifeStyle’s present, there was an intermission earlier than the subsequent a part of the style present: Cheryl Jean’s vogue present for her firm, Style Development Class. This present was extra about styling and upcycled vogue than pure designing, however it nonetheless offered inventive seems. Because the fashions strutted down the runway, the garments closely resembled the rising development of stylish streetwear as Cheryl Jean took conventional clothes similar to lengthy sleeves, button-ups, ties, skirts, and slacks, and paired them with elt chains, denims, distressed tank tops, bandanas, leather-based, and even a bulletproof vest. Though the items had been upcycled and gathered from a number of sources, they got here collectively to show a good looking and expressive assortment.
The final two acts of the present had been located within the Haute Couture class, with Ty Scott choosing up themes of deconstruction and inversion, and Prophet Envoy bridging political messages with well-known Black activists and writers featured in his clothes.
Ty Scott is an Indigenous American from a Narragansett reservation in Rhode Island, and his line, City Native, is predicated in New York.
“As a proud member of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, he channels his Native American heritage into designs that remember life out loud,” Scott’s designer bio reads. The said aim of his designs was to fuse his heritage with sustainable city vogue, and this merger was performed magnificently, demonstrating a excessive command of garment and textile making.
The James Brown music “It is A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” performed all through the present, repeated or interpolated with totally different covers of the music whereas the fashions had been strolling — destabilizing how the garments approached gender. The primary few seems featured upcycled Nike sweatsuits and two camo seems. The remainder of the seems stole the present, that includes clothes that had been deconstructed or mixed.
A number of seems mixed two clothes into one. Scott mixed a puffer jacket with a puffer vest stitched collectively on the backside — this fashion, should you wore the coat, the vest would cling off your physique the other way up round your waist and legs, and vice versa should you determined to put on the vest half. This garment was worn a number of instances on quite a lot of individuals all through the present.
The final present was by Prophet Envoy, whose identify stands for “Messenger of Good Information.” This present began with lyrics from Kendrick Lamar’s music “Savior” on repeat. Prophet Envoy’s messages had been “peace and freedom,” with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X printed onto jackets together with photos of Rosa Parks and Shirley Chisolm. Some jackets included Maya Angelou quotes, with a picture of Angelou overlaid on prime of a lightweight blue background.
Prophet Envoy’s themes of peace, freedom, and alter had been a good looking bookend to Boston’s first menswear-only vogue present. If this present signifies the creativity and design that Boston has to supply, this metropolis might be subsequent up for vogue designers wishing to make their names recognized all through the style world within the close to futur
—Employees author Christian A. Gines might be reached at [email protected].
