Alexander Wang Fall 2017

Alexander Wang

Fall 2017 Ready-to-Wear

The RKO Hamilton Theater is a fabulous wreck up on the corner of Broadway and 146th Street, way, way out of range of most Fashion Week goings-on. It was packed to the peeling rafters for Alexander Wang’s show tonight anyway, even without the promise of an after-party. The crowd stood around and inside an elevated square runway; a security guard periodically walked the perimeter asking folks to take their Peronis off the stage (the beer company was a sponsor), and a DJ spun rap heavy on the f-bombs. Early on, a couple of guys danced. We could’ve been at a concert the way the lights dimmed before the first girl stormed out.

Wang played up the no after-party thing; the phrase was stamped across the T-shirt he wore to take his running bow, and it crawled up the sheer stockings some of the models wore. This must’ve been meant ironically because his collection, which was almost exclusively black, was very much in the key of party girl. He opened with tailoring, splicing traditional suiting fabrics with sweatshirting to take the starch out. But from there he moved swiftly on to catsuits, leather pants, shorts, stretch denim with bold silver button-flys, and chain mail tees. If Google did us right, Night of Treason is a little-known punk band. Westernwear is a developing Fall trend, turning up first at Calvin Klein yesterday, and here at Wang in the form of fringed shirts and jackets. He also used ball studding and rhinestones as accents.

This was not particularly fresh material for Wang; some of the pieces seemed familiar from an almost all-black Fall show of two years ago, and after the sunny beach colors and upbeat spin of his Cali collection for Spring, it felt a little like retreat. At least we got a peek inside the majestically crumbling Hamilton Theater.

New York, February 11th,2017. Article by Nicole Phelps