Codesigners Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus felt completely disoriented — paralyzed, even — by the presidential election results. It didn’t manifest on their fall runway with splashy political statements (save for a sweater embroidered with the words “Is This What You Wanted?” modeled by artist and photographer Collier Schorr). But it did have an impact on their process. “We thought, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? And if we’re not pushing it to its capabilities, what’s the point?” Eckhaus said.
Added Latta, “We didn’t do the normal work we did to prep for [the collection]. We just weren’t thinking about making clothes at all, but I think that was actually beneficial to us. What we wanted to make and who we wanted to dress changed….The way we used color, textiles and worked with each other completely shifted and became a lot more free.”
It’s true: Eckhaus and Latta took their collection to new places for fall, infusing some of the looks for men and women with unexpected playfulness. Floral prints and punchy colors aren’t typical fare for the label, but here they turned up in a few places. The artist Susan Cianciolo, an Eckhaus Latta favorite, walked the runway in a vibrant floral-print tank — the sort of pattern you might see on a kid’s bathing suit — styled over a black satin turtleneck and zip-up skirt. Elsewhere, a quilted brown blanket skirt, which could be unbuttoned into a mini, was decorated with pale pink flowers. The earthy, muted tones were still present, but so were pops of fuchsia, orange, cobalt and yellow throughout, on knits and suiting, and a series of looks in white brocade featured tiny hand-drawn doodles and printed objects.
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They also experimented with outerwear, which, Latta admitted, “has never been their jam.” A tie-dyed patchwork nylon sherpa jacket opened the show, followed by a longer version for men. Another black coat featured a curved, cutout hemline in the back, revealing the model’s behind; she was wearing gray knit leggings that tied halfway up the calf. Latta said they aimed to make the collection feel “bolder, without asking to be looked at.” It’s the way the duo explores that sort of tension — daring versus subtle, pretty versus ugly, polish versus deconstruction — that makes their label so compelling.