Rock ‘n’ roll has long sat at the heart of R13’s aesthetic narrative; that’s not new. Designer Chris Leba has crafted a gender-ambiguous identity a little tough for gals, a little soft for guys — with signatures like leather, men’s-inspired suiting and dashes of Americana references all blended together in a cool play on cultural identity. He’ll take an inspiration as far-reaching as, say, the ethnoreligious Hutterites or Marie Antoinette, and run wild with eclectic layering.
What was new and surprising for resort was seeing Leba create diversity with only a handful of fabrics. He made a statement with military surplus, and you could boil the rest of the collection down to camo prints, leopard and fringe. He was taken by The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” music video from the early Eighties, a period when the band was mixing surplus with Western elements like bolo ties. If it sounds right up Leba’s alley, it’s because it was.
He channeled the brand’s inherent masculine-feminine dichotomy into looks that maintained elements both hard and soft. For example, baggy sequin camo shorts were styled with an oversize army jacket, and a semi-sheer floral cami was paired with trousers cut in a traditional men’s fabric from Scotland. He mixed in activewear elements like leggings and bike shorts in camo or mixed prints for a play on the unexpected. A camo blazer and bike shorts styled with long socks and western boots certainly isn’t the first image that comes to mind when you think of the brand, but it was unusual and it worked. To wit, all of the military surplus was upcycled or refurbished to maintain authenticity, continuing a vintage kick that began with fall 2019’s thrifted brooches. Punk and edgy, young and spirited, this was a collection that would appeal to boys and girls alike.