Brooklyn and fashion moment may have historically sounded like an oxymoron, but that's exactly what we witnessed at a Willy Chavarría extravaganza near the banks of the East River on Friday night.
Titled 'Safe from Harm', the collection contained everything that was good about Chavarría, sophisticated and surprising tailoring; Latin exuberance; dynamic layouts; lively inclusivity and a sense of bold bravery that sets the pulse racing.
All that, and a wonderfully inclusive cast that starred in this show and an intense movie that opened the show. Projected on a screen hung above a long table lit with hundreds of votive candles, Wily is seen as a modern-day saint, wearing a T-shirt with a bleeding heart.
On each seat, a plastic card with an image of the Virgin Mary and a message from the designer: “In our many tribes, we are ultimately one. A family living in a house. The reverberations between the walls. The footsteps and muffled voices across ceilings and floors.”
Members of those tribes starred in his brave short film, from model Dilone to Paloma Elsesser, who in a one-two punch walked later that night at the Tommy Hilfiger show.
Although it called for love, the film itself featured elements of gang culture, referencing one of the collection's inspirations, 'Griselda,' Sofía Vergara's hit Netflix television series about a Colombian cartel leader who devastates Miami. In Willy's movie, a gang member in his underwear gets help while lifting weights before getting up and kissing another guy. A short film that ends with the numerous characters shouting at the mirrors, the walls and hitting the floor.
It was then that the live cast appeared, a wonderfully heterogeneous cast, covering Central and South America, with super costumes and a stylized silhouette compared to the last seasons. While Wily launched her wholesale business model and her first women's clothing collection. And Chavarria begins selling at companies such as Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Maxfield, Dover Street Market and Selfridges.
Opening up with some daring suits, with broad pagoda shoulders and lapels so pointed they reach the shoulder line. She showed off cocoon-shaped leather jackets, Western blazers, and some fantastic three-pocket Saharienne leather looks, often paired with cowboy hats. She cut giant pants with multiple pleats, a style that young New York teenagers are already copying, as Chavarría's influence seems so immediate. For the women, leather biker jacket looks with cocktail looks and batwing blazers all looked great.
After the show, the designer stood on a chair backstage and calmed the cheers with a calm speech. “Thank you for being a part of this incredible uplifting work of art. We are doing this for each other and it is in times like this that we truly create change. I love you and I am very grateful,” he said, crossing his hands over his heart.
In fact, Chavarría is the fashion champion of BIPOC, the new acronym that stands for Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color. After a long apprenticeship working for more than a decade at companies like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, Chavarría suddenly burst onto the New York scene as a design leader. Supremely self-confident, he was his own final model, before joining the cast of him at the candle-laden table in a Last Supper atmosphere that garnered deafening cheers.
This proud son of Mexican immigrant farm workers has truly arrived. This is Chavarría's moment.
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