Opening Ceremony Fall 2015 Menswear
Opening Ceremony may have lately debuted the coolest wearable to hit the market so far (MICA), but for Fall 2015’s menswear outing, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim have turned an eye to something comparably retro: photography. Not the kind that garners likes on your feed, or which disappears into the ether in a matter of seconds, but tangible 35-millimeter photographs—"like you had in your house," per Leon. Who better to recruit for such an undertaking than OC comrade Spike Jonze? Long before he was directing for the big screen, Jonze cut his teeth documenting BMX and skate culture, cofounded Dirt magazine (regarded as the male counterpart to Sassy), and contributed regularly to Thrasher. It was his hefty personal archive that yielded some of Fall's coolest prints: a dizzying black-and-white skater collage (fun party trick: see who can pick out Mark Gonzales, Where's Waldo-style); B-roll stills from the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" video; BMX bikers mid-air. Opening Ceremony is also now perhaps the only brand to ever show a Sonic Youth jacquard. That was standout in trench form, but even better was a plaid composed entirely of teeny, tiny backstage snaps of Kim, Thurston, and Lee. The label also teamed up with Kodak to turn out a capsule of shirts with the company's vintage branding.
Skate culture, particularly its early days, has a sprezzatura to it that fashion can only hungrily dream of. But Leon and Lim distilled that to covetable effect in pieces like a double-cuffed, Dickies-esque jacket and plush knit T-shirt-sweater hybrids. There was a certain utilitarian spirit around the edges of the terrific suiting group, too, in D-ring belts and elasticized pant hems. A stacked lapel detail drove the brand's enduring appeal home, eccentric in all the right ways. To wit: the wonderfully weird, funnel-necked stretch dickeys. After all, if anyone can get the average guy into a dickey, it's Opening Ceremony.
Opening Ceremony Fall 2015
A confession: Your trusty correspondent here went into this evening's Opening Ceremony presentation with daggers drawn. OC chieftains Carol Lim and Humberto Leon had elected to present their new collection alongside a pop-up show of heretofore un-exhibited photographs by their friend (and sometime collaborator) Spike Jonze, and it seemed likely that the atmospherics around the clothes would prove almost too seductive. A Gen Xish girl such as yours truly, with fond memories of skater zines and indie rock, would have to handicap for her own nostalgia in order to give the collection a proper read.
So I entered with daggers drawn, and then those daggers were promptly sheathed. I mean, sometimes you just have to give in to pleasure, don't you? And both the photographs and the clothes were a blast to see. Plus, the juxtaposition of clothes and photos came off as both necessary and sincere: Jonze's work was the premise of this collection, which not only featured collage prints of his shots and jacquards referencing his contact sheets, but also aptly conjured the look and temperament of the 1990s, the era of the photos' creation. As much as anything else, the exhibition operated as an immersive mood board.
Opening Ceremony Pre-Fall 2015
Well, it was bound to happen. Inevitably, some label was going to do a juice-themed fashion collection. Also inevitably, that label was going to be Opening Ceremony. Why juice? Why not?! Are jacquards based on kale and ruffles that look a bit like orange slices inherently silly in a way that, say, jacquards based on works by hoity-toity contemporary artists or ruffles based on geological formations are not? This reviewer says no—and congratulates Humberto Leon and Carol Lim for having the wit to reach for a reference so close at hand. There's a certain kind of genius in seeing—really seeing—the familiar.
And kudos to Lim and Leon, as well, for turning out one of their strongest efforts in a while. There was a sophisticated side to this collection, and a playful one; at either end of the spectrum, you got the impression that these clothes had been carefully considered. The more grown-up offer, heavy on jacquards, featured some fantastic soigné coats and ruffled slim trousers and dresses that—never mind the orange-slice reference—had a real sense of reserve. That's a tone in short supply in most Opening Ceremony collections, but Lim and Leon struck it with confidence here. Then they moved on, into a more bonkers mode, and offered up banana-peel prints on Italian vinyl, sweatshirts covered with produce stickers, and lots of logomania-style treatments of the word Fresh! Yup.
Opening Ceremony Resort + Spring 2015
There's always a lot to take in at an Opening Ceremony presentation. This morning, that included a parade of models down Howard Street, two lithe live violinists whom Carol Lim and Humberto Leon had discovered busking in the subway, and the much-expanded Opening Ceremony store itself, where the presentation was held. Then, of course, there were the clothes: Lim and Leon chose to show their women's Resort and men's Spring collections in tandem, and both of these collections mashed up a multitude of materials and ideas. Sensory overload has become something of a signature of the OC brand.
At any rate, the ideas here were worth exploring. Conceptually, the most interesting one was about magnification vs. micro-fication, demonstrated in prints that featured photographic fronds and palm trees, on the one hand, or magnified bacterium (or something) on the other. One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small. And the trippiest print of all, for some reason, was the one with all the anemones. Why anemones? Why not? Lim and Leon used the anemones in both the men's and women's collections.
From the point of view of sales, meanwhile, the most interesting thing in the women's collection was the new denim. As Leon explained, Opening Ceremony has no intention of getting into the skinny denim trade; they just want to use denim as a fashion fabric. They'll find lots of takers for their printed and stitch-detail minis and jeans, which looked particularly good paired with this collection's fine, graphic ottoman knits.
Over on the menswear side of the store, the vibe was more sporty. Mesh, zip details, anoraks. Fabrications were key here, with cool materials like a latex-coated cotton done in yellow or a spongy technical that gave pieces like a natty gray coat a futuristic feel. The op-art knits compounded the trippiness. Taken together, these men's and women's collections may mark the moment that Opening Ceremony matured its tone from quirky-cute to downright weird. Which isn't a bad thing in the least.
Opening Ceremony Fall 2014
Legend has it that the name "Antwerp" is derived from the Dutch term hand werpen, meaning "hand-thrown." There's a whole story about a giant guarding the river, who would cut off people's hands. Anyway, this evening's Opening Ceremony show was an appealingly motley mix of things Belgian and, more specifically, Antwerp-ian, and among these, the mooted etymology of the city's name played a starring role. The collection's key print, for instance, was a fingerprint swirl deployed in the most sculpturally ambitious of the men's and women's looks.
What really got your attention, though, was the graphic quality of the clothes. Obviously, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim couldn't vibe on Antwerp without imbibing the city's fashion history. Raf was a presence here, to be sure, but Lim and Leon mostly seemed interested in translating the linearity and sobriety of the Antwerp look into clothes with that jaunty Opening Ceremony mien. Essentially, they did this by making the clothes very, very graphic. That was elaborated in the women's clothes by employing a lot of asymmetry; the men's looks featured trompe l'oeil layering and zips that worked to adjust proportion and volume. Overall, this men's collection articulated a stronger point of view than the womenswear—there was a clear silhouette proposition and a good number of very strong pieces, such as quilted anoraks. The women's range didn't cohere as well, not least because the emphasis on asymmetry produced too many looks that just came off looking messy. Taken together, though, these collections did affirm that Lim and Leon's ambitions as designers continue to advance.
Opening Ceremony for Foundation Magritte 2014
Shortly after its recent collaboration with Spike Jonze, Opening Ceremony has continued down the artistic track with a capsule collection set to launch in May celebrating the surrealist works of René Magritte. The American concept store called upon the talents of Manolo Blahnik, Birkenstock and Vans to collaborate on this unique project for ready-to-wear and shoe collections. Faithful to the original work of the Belgian artist, the collection presents 12 of his most famous paintings as collectors' pieces, such as the Shéhérazade beaded dress and bomber jacket. For the collaboration, the Spanish designer Manolo Blahnik has created an exclusive pair of stilettos based upon Le coup au cœur. A stunning meeting of art and fashion that is right on-trend for Spring/Summer.