Latest news with #EckhausLatta
Los Angeles Times
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The hottest fashion and art happenings for an endless L.A. summer
After selling out of their first bag design, the Snap, Eckhaus Latta is re-releasing it in three new colors: Bone, an understated off-white, Forget, a dreamy sky blue, and navy, a classic tone to round out the collection. (The original green and black colors are also restocked.) The rounded leather bag has a worn-in '90s feel, spacious enough for keys, lipsticks and forgotten love letters. The Snap is characterized by functionality, with silver snaps that encircle the strap for a customizable opening. Meant to be worn on the move, the Snap is bound to be a busy Angeleno's best friend. $675. Now available for purchase on Ready for summertime stomping, Venice brand ERL, designed by Eli Russell Linnetz. has launched its first line of flip-flops. The collection features three styles: Low'(1-inch sole, $185), Big (5-inch sole, $375), and the massive Huge (8-inch sole, $1250, made on request). Whether you're towering over surfers in Huge or shuffling along the beach in Low, ERL has created a flip-flop height for any occasion. Available in black and Sand colorways, the flip-flops are designed to blend technical craftsmanship with California understated style. Available on No city has sparked inspiration and myth quite like ours. 'Los Angeles, Revisited' dives into the relationship between L.A. and the artists who've helped shape its structural identity. Tracing back to the city's first skyscraper, the Braly Block completed in 1904, the exhibition reveals how L.A. has grown, been demolished and rebuilt again over decades. Among the greenery of the Huntington, you'll find displays of early Angeleno construction plans and neighborhood renewals that map the city as we know it today. Open through Dec. 1. Byredo is known for its signature mood-setting scents that take users from dry deserts to musky fur-lined lairs. The brand's newest perfume, Alto Astral, is inspired by Brazil's tropical flavor and vibrant cultural expression. The name refers to an elevated state of mind, expressed through creamy top notes of coconut with jasmine petals, incense and a woody base. Available now in Byredo stores and at . Architecture and race are intrinsically linked in architect J. Yolande Daniels' new exhibit, which explores the relationship between structure and discrimination in L.A.'s history. In 'To a Future Space-Time,' Daniels redefines Black architecture as a mode of reclaiming space and autonomy — with the work of Black Angelenos displayed through archival maps, atlases and glossaries in collaboration with the California African American Museum. Running through Sept. 6. L.A. artist Alex Israel is collaborating with Oliver Peoples for a limited edition pair of sunglasses, with all proceeds going to wildfire rebuilding efforts across the city. The brand's classic Oliver Sun frame was redone in three shades — black, tortoise and clear — to reflect a Southern California laid-back attitude. Accompanied by the artist's Fin symbol, representing progress and local surf culture, the frames are at once retro and optimistic for a rebuilt future. Available now. K-Swiss is getting a fresh perspective with Anwar Carrots as creative director of a new line. As the founder of the brand Carrots, the designer has made waves in the industry through his consistent collaborations with everyone from Crocs to 'One Piece.' Inspired by warm, orange-tinted memories of his father rocking K-Swiss in late '90s Orlando, Carrots hopes to bring back an old-school cool to the brand with the collection, K-Swiss Racquet Club. Carrots reworked familiar silhouettes from the heritage brand alongside new iterations from the designer's 'creative garden.' First drop available now. In 1986, California-based norteño band Los Tigres del Norte released the song 'América,' with lyrics conveying that those born on the American continent are brothers. This sentiment is where the exhibit, 'America (Soy Yo!),' finds its place. Curated by gallery director Ever Velasquez, the show features artists from across the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America and Canada, questioning the man-made borders, land ownership, and criminalization of migration that has defined the political landscape. Open through Aug. 30. Ever wondered what a teapot would look like if it was an octopus? Or a collection of sculpted screws? At Craft in America Center, a family of strange and imaginative teapots are on display in 'Tea for Two: The Teapots of Gloria and Sonny Kamm.' Hand-crafted from a range of materials, including ceramic and pistachio shells, the teapots reinterpret a classic household item with an 'Alice in Wonderland' charm. Tea lovers looking for a drop of whimsy will find it among this display of the world's largest private teapot collection. Open through Aug. 30.
Elle
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
Designer Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen Celebrates Witchy Women
Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen has been thinking about medieval times a lot lately. And not just because of the techno-feudalism that has taken over our world. For her fall 2025 show, she collaborated with artist Vasaris Balzekas on surreal armored plates, which served as a foil to her delicate corseted gowns. Whalen had always been averse to the motif, but, she says, 'We're living in a time now that is incredibly violent, and we're being exposed to a lot of brutality. I thought it would be a striking thing to explore visually and not shy away from commenting on the time we're living through, which is quite dark.' Held at Performance Space New York in the East Village, the candlelit show ended dramatically, with the designer herself snuffing out each flame. The Middle Ages are not the only historical period the Brooklyn-based designer has dug into in her work: Over the short history of her label, everything from Victorian petticoats and corseting to 17th-century panniers has made an appearance. She is fascinated by the different forms of body modification we have seen over the centuries, and the conundrum of how to reference them in contemporary dress. Whalen didn't always see a place for herself in fashion. Growing up in Massachusetts, she was immersed in the 'unschooling' movement, which encourages students to freely pursue their own interests. At 12, she learned to sew from a local women's sewing circle. She remembers thinking, 'I have no idea how I'm going to bridge this hippie side of me, literally climbing trees barefoot,' with the fashion industry. When she began working for the art-influenced label Eckhaus Latta, it clicked into place that she didn't need to negate that side of herself to succeed. Whalen went on to found her own label, and makes her ethereal creations from deadstock fabric, upcycled bedsheets, and found linens, among other materials. She's drawn to these sources not just because they are sustainable, but because they bring her back to an older, craft-based tradition where people held onto items for generations. 'The way I think we can create this sustainable-future proposal is not through the materiality of things, but through our emotional relationship with these pieces,' she says. 'I think that is the only way that we're going to get people to consume less.'
New York Times
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
When Clothing Is Also a Bullhorn
'I started designing this before the election,' Joseph Altuzarra said on the Saturday of New York Fashion Week, gesturing at his collection. 'And then, as things began to unfold, we started changing things.' Like the knit skirts paired with military pea coats and martinet tweeds that, he said, 'started with really cute little small fringed edges' and then exploded into bulbous pompoms of yarn. Like the diamond crystals on a crisp white halter dress, which were originally 'tiny studs, and then they became almost rocks.' Just as the shoulders on his bias-cut silk gowns became Joan Crawford-sharp, and the funnel necks of his coats almost like shields. Even the sheer organza florals, once 1950s sweet, had been, he said, 'deflated.' 'We wanted it,' Mr. Altuzarra said, 'to feel more defiant.' He was, it turned out, not the only designer interested in that idea. Since the presidential inauguration last month, there has been talk within the fashion world, which overwhelmingly supported Kamala Harris, about whether fashion houses might follow the lead of tech and finance and sacrifice the principles they had been spouting in favor of public political neutrality. But as New York Fashion Week got underway, an answer of sorts began to emerge, at least among smaller, independent New York labels. There, it turns out, the opposition is alive and well — and walking (even dancing) on the runway. It's not that designers are suddenly producing reams of protest tees. They are reaching for something deeper and more essential than that. They are weaving issues of sustainability, gender and inclusion into their collections — the kinds of values currently spurned by the Trump administration. In doing so, they are embedding a form of quiet resistance in clothes, creating garments that celebrate experimentation and allow wearers to lean into their chosen forms of self-expression and subvert long-established (and resurgent) norms. Every time they get up and put something on — and without saying a word. At Collina Strada, for example, the designer Hillary Taymour called her show 'Fempire' and sent out floral camo jackets, so blouse-y they resembled sartorial bivouacs, and shirting slung with ruffles across the chest like peacenik bandoleers, on all sorts of body shapes and sizes. Two women pranced down the runway in white lace wedding dresses in the throes of a faux elopement, which also turned out to be the unveiling of a new business in custom upcycling. (Take your old family heirloom to Ms. Taymour, and she'll make it into something new.) Still, in case anyone didn't get the message, most of the models had leopard spots dotting their faces. Because 'everyone has different spots,' Ms. Taymour said backstage. 'And we should respect that.' Who needs a bullhorn, when you have clothes? That's why at Eckhaus Latta the designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta said they wanted to focus on the basics. (Just the facts, ma'am.) Or at least their version of basics, which takes old standards and skews them left of center. Men's wear and women's wear tend to merge into one, with tops patchworked together as if from leftovers, pants hanging off hips and the pockets on cargo pants given a pregnant curve. There's a voluptuousness to the designers' refusal to buy into uptown tropes of fancy, the clichés of beauty, that acts as its own kind of challenge. Leather pieces, including blouson jackets, jeans, A-line skirts, knee-high boots and a tote bag, were pieced together from strips of black, white and taxicab-yellow leather, like a blurry streetscape. A pair of dip-dyed jeans was paint-splattered to match a dip-dyed paint-splattered bong cradled in the model's hand as if it were a clutch bag. Or a flag. The point, Sergio Hudson said after a show of power sportswear in saturated tones of cherry, evergreen, lilac and sky blue, is that clothes can be a means of support. Even, he pointed out, a 'teachable moment.' So it was for him, anyway, when he learned that Usha Vance, the new second lady, had worn his white dress and coat to the wreath-laying ceremony in Arlington Cemetery during the inauguration weekend. He hadn't known about it — she had purchased the look independently — until friends started texting him in surprise. 'It was weird, I'm not going to lie,' Mr. Hudson said, given that he had been involved with the Harris campaign and dressed Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris during the Biden inauguration. 'But anybody who buys my clothes, I appreciate it.' Indeed, he noted, the sheer fact that Ms. Vance could go online and get his clothes was an important reminder. 'It's a free country,' he said.
