Alexander Lewis (Q2589)
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Alexander Lewis is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Alexander Lewis |
Alexander Lewis is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
“She’s standing in a video arcade watching her boyfriend play pinball and sipping on a Diet Coke,” said the designerAlexander Lewisof the youthful muse inspiring his Fall 2016 presentation, which saw an industrial hangar in Kings Cross transformed into a minimalist pinball machine. Models with deliberately bored expressions, some chewing on gum, hung around the jagged steel set in clothes pulled straight from the brightly lit pachinko parlors of Tokyo (for the non-gamers, pachinko is a pinball derivative that is the addictive Japanese equivalent of the Vegas slot machine). Lewis, the London-based American designer, had been thinking about the emergence of wearable technology and explored his zeitgeist-y theme with teenage abandon. Rather than invest the clothes with techy functionality, Lewis’s “hardwired” collection applied new technologies to fabrication, debuting a newfangled graphic crystal transfer technique (Lewis is one of the Swarovski Collective 2016) to holographic miniskirts, and a thrilling series of self-adhesive stickers.The palette stemmed from a higher cultural source light years from any arcade: As a boy, Lewis’s grandmother took him out to the Rothko Chapel in Houston. That trip to the artist’s mausoleum-like chapel left a lasting impression that found expression in this season’s muted spectrum of teals and purples and plums. It was there too in the black and burgundy sweater that echoed Rothko’s “Seagram” murals. For a Fall collection there was a notable absence of outerwear. This season-shy designer traded heavy-duty cover-ups for knitwear and separates that are easily layered in a chill. Note to self: The shirting that makes up a large portion of Lewis’s line is due to drop into stores unseasonably early in May. Game on.
23 February 2016
And then there was light. . . .Alexander Lewisisn’t afraid of a religious reference, but he wasn’t riffing onGenesisin his new, light-themed collection. Rather, on this occasion he took Richard Dawkins’s tack, and regarded the science of light with a near-spiritual sense of awe. This season Lewis collaborated with the artist Flavie Audi, who makes sculptures of metal and glass, and he was fascinated by the way light plays on and within her work. That inspired a study of the properties of light—its wavelike form, the way it refracts through prisms, how its reflection glimmers and splits across the surface of things. It was a good season, in other words, for Lewis to have sponsorship from crystal honchos Swarovski.Lewis got at his theme via a variety of means. He made rubbings of Audi’s sculptures and developed cloud-like prints and patterned jacquards, and he peered into the insides of her work and watched the alchemy of her materials, then created galactic-looking prints that magnified those reactions. There were also crystal-dappled sheer silks, frequently found layered with other, more plainspoken materials such as shirting pinstripe, that recalled the reaction prints’ starry night sky effect. Elsewhere, Lewis conjured light waves via crystal strands dangling off a dress, or caviar crystal pressed into the fabric of a pale blue skirt. Blue was the key color here; this collection also emphasized dresses and skirts more than most Lewis outings. The collection was at its best, oddly, when Lewis interpreted his theme either extremely literally or extremely loosely—his pinstripe pieces were a highlight, for instance, but so was the sweater with a refracting prism intarsia-ed across the front, and a cropped top with mirror cube embroidery.The one quibble here, really, was with Lewis’s insistence that all his garments express his concept, either more or less directly. In general, his sense of focus redounds to his benefit, but it would be nice to see this designer loosen up a little, and permit himself to, say, cut a sharp pair of trousers, or conjure a fluid, flattering dress, just because they complement the rest of his collection. Lewis gets his points across just fine—he should have the confidence, going forward, not to underline them.
22 September 2015
There's precise, and then there's Alexander Lewis-inspiration precise—a collection based on an imagined moment: "I always focus on a situation as opposed to a season. So for me, for this situation, I wanted to go back to Brazil. A woman has just taken a dance workshop taught by Aya Sato and Bambi at the Sesc Pompéia in São Paulo. She's leaving; it's the magic hour: She's on her way home to meet her girlfriends at her Isay Winfeld apartment. She has sweat on her body, glistening. Endorphins are rushing through her. She's living. After this incredible dance workshop. And it's Tuesday night, a week before New Year's Eve."So the wood-grain print, concrete jacquards, and building-block appliqués spoke of Winfeld's and the Sesc Pompéia's architecture, and the palm print of the view through its sky bridges. The shorts, skorts, and shorts disguised as silk cady four-slit dresses—or worn above attached-netting pants—muttered of Lewis' take on Sato and Bambi's functional, fluidly layered, hard-core dance gear. The white looks, fishtail hems, and appliquéd mermaid dress were anticipatory of Lewis' sweat-drenched girl's New Year's Eve to come. In Brazil, he explained, you wear white on the night and, if possible, head for the beach to jump seven waves in order to honor the goddess Yemaya. Not everything here was so closely spoored to Lewis' story: Peplumed linen tank tops and piped linen cross-body beach cover-ups were some of the more resort-y Resort items. A white jacquard shot through with holographic, rainbow-flash yarn was meant simply to cast light on the wearer's face.Evoking such a precise moment might seem overly particular, but it's a practice with tangible results. The thoroughness of Lewis' imaginative narrative translated into a collection just as finely drawn.
15 June 2015
There's always a discrepancy—sometimes vast, sometimes slight—between the clientele a designer imagines for his clothes and the women who actually buy the stuff and wear it. The usual thing is that the real-life consumer turns out to be older than the collection's muse: Luxury fashion is expensive, after all, and the women with the resources to afford it have generally put a few birthdays behind them. So it came as something of a surprise to Alexander Lewis when he found out recently that the fan base for his three-year-old brand skewed younger than he'd foreseen.The discovery seemed like a good excuse to throw a party. Though there were plenty of looks in Lewis' latest collection that would appeal to women of the grown-up variety, the emphasis was on pieces with a fun-loving, youthful tone. To wit: a flirty kick-pleated skirt in multicolor striped jacquard, or the slouchy button-downs and tees, likewise striped, that Lewis covered in sequins.Sparkle and shine was a big theme for Lewis this season, but the through-line here was stripes—the disco-sequined clothes had the most punch, but it was the pieces in gold or silver-striped jacquard that stuck with you. A lean double-breasted coat in the gold was a standout, and, like the rest of the outerwear on offer, it boasted an appeal that cut across age. The same could be said for Lewis' typically excellent knits, which don't look like much in pictures, frankly, but have a hand quality that makes them catnip on the racks. Lewis' novelty sweaters have emerged as a key category for him, he pointed out at an appointment today; this time, he emblazoned them with the word "yalla," an Arabic term, common throughout the Middle East, that means, in essence, "Hurry up already, let's go." The word served as a fitting metonym for the energy in this punchy, concise collection: Alexander Lewis is seizing his momentum, and preparing to take off.
25 February 2015
Alexander Lewis is interested in the way women dress. That may seem like a master-of-the-obvious statement—the guy is a designer, after all—but his interest is of a particular kind. He's an observer, an ethnographer, an empathizer. In essence, Lewis is interested in theusewomen get from their clothes, both on a practical level (where can I wear this?) and on an existential one (if I wear this, what does that say about me?). Previous seasons found him posing those questions to hypothetical East L.A.cholagirls and invented Palm Springs doyennes. His strategy is to ask, and then extrapolate a playful collection from the answers his make-believe muses provide.For Pre-Fall, Lewis tread into potentially touchy territory, as he dreamed up a "frisky fummer"—a woman from a conservative Jewish background, still bound to those traditions, but who simultaneously maintains a seeking, experimental, sensual side. This is not an implausible character. And though some of the motifs in this collection—like the seven stripes, drawn from the tallit, the men's prayer shawl—were Jewish-as-can-be, Lewis was correct when he pointed out that the tricky balance of tradition and experimentation is common to cosmopolitan religious women of every kind. And so other notions here, like the pomegranate-inspired embroidery and the hamsa hand embellishment, had a non-religious, pan-Middle Eastern feel.Anyway, the clothes. Perhaps the defining quality of Lewis' aesthetic is his sense of the "appropriate": Even his sexiest designs have a certain reserve to them; ditto the ones that read as the most youthful. This season's ultra-short, box-pleated skirts were a case in point. Never mind the minuscule hemlines—the skirts' weight and rigorous construction made them seem modest somehow. The terrific velvet looks played the same trick, coming off as decorous despite the louche feel of the material and that not-safe-for-synagogue wink of midriff. Lewis' painterly color-blocking was his nicest touch. But other details stood out, too, such as the asymmetric pleating on short and knee-length skirts, and the subtle bell of a sleeve on an otherwise understated silk dress. Also worthy of note: The boater hats, which Lewis made in collaboration with Piers Atkinson. A woman heading to shul would be glad to have one of those. But then, so would a woman who knows no god but style.
19 December 2014
London-based designer Alexander Lewis is making a habit of flipping the fashion industry script. When Lewis launched his label, he produced only Pre-Fall and Resort collections. And when he finally debuted a proper Fall/Winter collection last season, he made it a capsule, and engaged the artist Marie Angeletti to riff on the silhouettes he'd created for Pre-Fall. This time out, Lewis stuck to that basic playbook, but approached his collection more expansively. The terrific English artist Celia Hempton provided Lewis with three color palettes inspired by his Resort '15 reference, Palm Springs, and he in turn designed a completely new range of silhouettes bearing in mind Hempton's ideas about light and shadow. The result? Easy shapes with a ton of graphic punch. The most eye-catching pieces were the leather miniskirts and collarless silk blouses with patchwork swoops of color; elsewhere, Lewis' fluid A-line skirts and sleeveless jackets made a quieter, but no less substantial impact. Lewis was toying a bit with his typical proportions, as well as with his tone, and the jacquard maxi skirts and demure dresses with multicolor pleats came off rather exploratory. He was on firmer ground tuning into the kink of Hempton's work. Her most notorious paintings are renderings, surreal and beautiful, of images that she found browsing Chatroulette. And you could spot their influence in the borderline tackiness of Lewis' metallic leather short shorts, or the sensual dishabille of a slouchy, one-shoulder knit dress, or the bit of faux bra winking out of a top. Also kinky: Lewis' outstanding boots, made in collaboration with Manolo Blahnik.
3 October 2014
"My grandmother on MDMA at Coachella." With an inspiration like that, Alexander Lewis was either going to go badly wrong or get something extremely right with his latest collection. Net-a-Porter thought "right," apparently—the label-making e-tailer picked up Lewis this season.Not that the endorsement was necessary to see that Lewis had taken things up a notch this time out. The grandma/Coachella theme wasn't random, in fact, but canny: Before Palm Springs' environs were known for hosting America's premier music festival-cum-temporary hipster encampment, they were famed as the home of well-heeled retirees with a penchant for pastels and afternoons on the links. Lewis, who actually has a grandmother in Palm Springs, lasered in on the golf courses, translating a bird's-eye view of sand traps and greens into marbled jacquard and fine crystal-studded embroidery. Then he got all hallucinogenic, blowing up the pattern into undulating shapes patchworked into skirts, tops, and dresses. One iteration of that idea was a seafoam-green tank dress featuring the designer's signature curved hem, which was inset with a globule of matching metallic organza. Trippy. (Lewis topped the look with a coordinating crocheted cardigan—trèsgranny.) Where he really scored, though, was with his lightweight leather, a new material for him, and the super-clever cotton jacquards that simulated denim. That fabric, Lewis explained, was cooler to wear and more pliable than actual denim, which made it something of a life hack for women—granny or hipster—planning a trip to the desert.
8 June 2014
First things first: Yes, those are scrunchies in Alexander Lewis' new collection. Second things second: Yes, the London-based Lewis will be producing the scrunchies for sale. And with that, one is tempted to say thumbs-up, case closed, that is all. Reviewfini.But there was a ton more than scrunchies worthy of note in Lewis' latest. His preoccupation here was sexiness, a familiar theme, certainly, but one that the designer came at from an interesting angle: As he explained, he was imagining a woman keen to express her sexuality even in circumstances where it can't be front and center. For instance, Lewis referred to one look—a conservative frock with a long-sleeve bordeaux-colored blouse and knee-length skirt of chain-link jacquard—as his "synagogue dress." Elsewhere, he located vixenishness in masculine clothes, like a tailored wool suit with a skirt slit up to there.The really unexpected flavor in this collection, however, was its Chicano influence. Lewis used to live in East L.A., and he cherry-picked a variety of references from that experience, everything from the architectural shape of a blouse's scalloping, to the Aztlán motifs in prints and intarsia knit sweaters, to the various chain-link jacquards. There was also a distinctly East L.A. vibe to his Dickies-shaped pants, and an overt nod in the "Mamacita" cashmere knit, which ought to be a fast seller. Ultimately, the clothes landed on the right side of the line between celebration and appropriation—more than anything, Lewis seemed to want to capture that certain fierce chola attitude and see if it could survive translation into luxury separates. It did, with a little help from a few scrunchies.
5 January 2014
Alexander Lewis was talking about "a clash of cultures" at his Resort presentation. It's an idea that hits close to home for this up-and-coming designer, who is Brazilian but based in London. The cultures in question were Asian expats and surfers. But if the references could be quite literal—Mao-collared Qipao shirts and shibori dyeing techniques on the one hand, and board shorts and surfboard-shaped seams on the other—the results were subtle and wearable. A mash-up that was more than the sum of its parts.Lewis was trained on Savile Row, and it showed in the rigor of a miniskirt suit pieced together from those surfboard shapes. There was something efficient about his approach to pattern as well. All of his patterns were inspired by a shibori dyeing experiment he conducted at home in his London bathtub, but rendered on silk jacquard and cotton canvas, they were as different as night and day. The blue and white cotton canvas, in particular, looked great. It had the laid-back feel of sun- and sand-battered denim. The surfing community would no doubt approve.
13 June 2013