If last season’s all-black collection was “a palate cleanser,” this season Willy Chavarria let it all down and said “let there be light!” The gilded doors to heaven opened—or in this case the gorgeous staircase inside the Woolworth Building—and out came the first model in a crisp white linen jacket with a wide peak lapel and sweeping extra-wide leg trousers, accessorized with a red wide brim hat and a giant red flower pinned to the lapel.
“I think this is my most elevated collection yet,” he said backstage before the show. “Last season, I wanted to separate myself from a more street/sportswear identity, and I wanted to clear the air and show that I could do a full couture evening collection.” Having laid down how devastatingly glamorous his vision could be, he returned assured about just how big the Willy Chavarria label can be. “It’s not just sportswear, it’s not just eveningwear, it’s not just tailoring, it’s not just underwear—which I’m introducing this season—it’s all of those,” he said, “worn together.”
Out came his take on college prep: The navy jacket was nipped at the waist and fit snugly; the khaki shorts, with their slightly dropped crotch, were a bit oversized and certainly too long; and the baby blue button-down underneath with its round collar was a little femme, proudly parading itself atop the blazer’s lapel. It was simply perverted in its proportions. The collegiate vibe also appeared on another one of Chavarria’s staples, the athletic jersey, which he did with a dramatic balloon sleeve, and the season’s graphic tee, emblazoned with the logo for an imaginary youth group “Grupo Nueva Visión Por Vida” (The New Vision for Life Group). The title of this collection was “New Life.”
A red double-breasted jacket had a terrific light pink fade like it’d been in the sun for too long, and was paired with long red basketball shorts, while tank tops and underwear bore rips throughout. “There’s always a dark side to everything I do, and in this moment, we have a kind of vulnerability that we as a people have, that the youth have,” he said. “There’s a period of destruction, to show the kind of dystopia I think the younger generation is experiencing.” But then, in the spirit of matching everything with everything, a pair of destroyed basketball shorts was paired with an all-over sequin embroidered turtleneck, while a trenchcoat in a gorgeous shade of toffee in a Japanese fabric made of seaweed, was worn with nothing but gray boxer shorts underneath.
“We wanted to avoid quiet luxury at all costs,” he added. He could’ve been talking about the metallic pleated silk satin trousers worn with a black quasi-poet blouse tucked in and unbuttoned down to there, or the golden sequin trousers paired with a graphic t-shirt and a boxy denim jacket with gold monogrammed buttons. If you look closely you can see that the image on the shirt is that of Yuji, who is also the model wearing it, wrapped in a Mexican flag and holding a gold coin emblazoned with a “W, ” the same design that can be found on those buttons.
The show ran a little long, but the sweeping couture-esque cape-dresses in red Japanese silk and white recycled polyester at the end took everyone’s breath away. Chavarria added, “It’s a very emotional collection for me because I found that as I was doing it that it touches on all these incredible influences in fashion throughout our Latinidad, so we see moments that are from the ’30s, from the ’40s, from the ’50s, ’60s, and also the future.”
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