Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta’s spring show was the most hipster fashion show ever. And yet it wasn’t annoying. No small feat considering the music was provided by a troupe of toddler percussionists banging to their own beat on plastic buckets as their parents looked on. Eckhaus and Latta doubled down on the arty-awkward genre to the point that the line between authenticity and self-parody began to blur. The show was held in an empty loft somewhere several flights up a freight elevator in an industrial workshop in East Williamsburg. On the way out, one wondered if the guys welding things on the ground floor were actually working or part of the set. The show notes concluded with this piece of prose: “The only power that is here is given and taken freely/in the spiral/of the hummus toilet manifesto.”
In other words, Eckhaus and Latta owned it. The collection, too, reflected the tenets of nonconformity with everyday basics — T-shirts, sweats, denim and tailoring — tweaked in colors and proportions that were strange but appealing. It was much better than last season. The silhouettes — women’s and men’s, all of them laced with fluidity — were very simple, but came jazzed-up via construction and technique. Knitwear is a strength, flexed with tanks and tank dresses done in pulled spider web patterns. A white tube top and matching skirt were gently bunched and cinched with drawstrings. Some denim was dyed like a cowhide. Some was done in clean pastels. Some of it fell on the deliberately ugly spectrum, such as blazers with big, slanted shoulders and droopy pants. But some of it was improbably sexy and pretty, such as jersey slipdresses with spaghetti straps and open backs. To some extent, the lineup was a mixed bag, but it played out with organized chaos, just like the little drummers thumping with abandon until they were told to stop.