Nothing beats the New York City skyline during a summer sunset. Throw in a legendary supermodel, some of New York’s coolest up and coming brands, a marching band, a rapper, and you’ve got yourself a show.
Such was the case at the first evening of MADE x PayPal, a multi-day extravaganza produced by IMG Focus, designed to celebrate and advance emerging local talents. The event was a full circle moment. Put together with the curation of Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne of Public School, the once omnipresent New York brand that put on their own first show with MADE 10 years ago, the event was a full-circle moment. The talent incubator that helped launch labels like Telfar, Eckhaus Latta, Jonathan Simkhai and Hood By Air is back, now with the support of PayPal.
“This is the 10th year anniversary of Public School, we launched with MADE,” Chow told Vogue backstage. “Ten years later they asked us to come back and help usher in the next generation of great designers, and it was an honor to be able to curate this group and give them a little bit of direction.” Much of what makes a brand successful has shifted over the last decade, but for Chow and Osborne the elements for success are unchanged. “Point of view is always key,” said Osborne about their selection of designers. “Do they have longevity in terms of their business? Because you want to see them succeed,” he added.
The two-day event at Brooklyn Bridge Park featured a marketplace of small businesses, live conversations (including a panel between Public School and Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi), DJ sets by the likes of Heron Preston and Mona Matsuoka, and more.
Friday evening hosted Des Pierrot, Fried Rice, Loring New York, Savant Studios, and Colin LoCascio, a group of emerging designers “who are at the precipice of establishing their businesses,” as Chow described them, in a show titled New Wave New York. Each of the brands were tasked with creating collections made entirely with Public School deadstock under the mentorship of Chow and Osborne. As a throughline, the materials helped establish a consistent narrative while letting the designers lean into their own idiosyncrasies.
The Native American model Quannah Chasinghorse opened the show in a piece by Long Xu of Loring New York. A Parsons MFA alumnus, Xu merged function and femininity by way of technical fabrics originally made for parachutes and military uniforms. Next up was a series of workwear-inspired silhouettes in compellingly mismatched fabrics patchworked by Fried Rice designer Maya Wang. “Fried Rice is a metaphor for the diversity of perspectives in New York,” Wang said during a post-show interview. “It follows the concept that our communities are made of a mix of people like different ingredients make up fried rice.”
Colin LoCascio launched his brand in the fall of 2020, and has established a signature aesthetic that nests on a whimsical mashup of colorful hand drawn floral motifs and textural elements. He presented a lineup of playful core pieces, the most successful of which came in camo with hand-drawn florals. Deslyn Pierrot of Des Pierrot remixed wardrobe staples with his signature crochet and embroidery techniques. Most striking was a denim set, but it’s easy to imagine his pieces on anyone from Bella Hadid to Justin Bieber or Nas (who actually performed later in the evening).
Michael Graham of Savant Studios closed the show. “Savant is about everyday superheroes, a savant is somebody who knows something without having had to learn it,” he said. “We’re Savant Studios and we are working with Public School, so we came up with Savant School and imagined this academy of the gifted and talented and what they would wear,” Graham explained. The collection reimagined uniforms with varsity and mathematical motifs. A hoodie with broad shoulder pads was a crowd favorite, as was the closing number, a white dress draped with multiple white button-downs modeled by Alek Wek.
Evening number two was titled MADE Class of 2022, and featured collections by K.NGSLEY, Bed on Water, and Whensmokeclears. “We clearly remember being the emerging emerging, but we also remember just blowing up and becoming names on the scene,” said Chow. So night two was about providing these up-and-comers with the opportunity to showcase their collections on a runway for the first time and hopefully get to the next level.
Kingsley Gbadegesin, a first-generation Nigerian-American, started his label K.NGSLEY right as the pandemic hit. He launched a series of reworked tank tops which were instant hits online and with the gay community. Since then, he’s expanded his label to wovens and jewelry featuring the PrEP pill, an HIV prevention medication. This collection, Act 2, was an expansion of his design lexicon that saw his signature cutouts make their way into denim and shirting. The result was a sexy take on classic American minimalism, with a feel of Helmut Lang, who has become a recurring reference to many designers in this space. “It’s all about community for me,” Gbadegesin said post-show. “This is a tribute to queer New York nightlife, they’ve put me here and they’re my community.”
Thermal and K$ace of Whensmokeclears named their collection 1-800 WHENSMOKECLEARS. A nostalgic ode to communication and connectivity, it featured international calling cards and reworked telecommunication companies’ logos on workwear silhouettes. The design duo was part of the Black Fashion Council showcase last year and also showed with IMG. Now, they’re working on a collection with Puerto Rican rapper Anuel after outfitting him for his current tour. “Calling cards, the things that we used to maintain our relationships between America and everything else, this was an ode to that way of living,” Thermal said. “We went a bit Y2K with it, but it was all about connection.”
Bed on Water’s Shanel Campbell describes herself as an interdisciplinary artist. “I do photography, collages, and paintings which serve as the prints, but my formal training is in fashion, so it will always come back to that.” Her collection showcased her sexy, experimental aesthetic and her technical skill. One standout was a leather jacket with broad, rounded shoulders (something Julia Fox, who sat front row, would definitely wear), another was an impeccably fit pink bodycon velour set of separates styles as a catsuit. During the “stagnant, dark place” of the pandemic, Campbell had pivoted out of fashion and into art, but her paintings ushered her back into clothes. Lucky for Julia Fox, and for all of us.
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