Chris Benz (Q2759)
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Chris Benz is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Chris Benz |
Chris Benz is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
With 88,000 Twitter followers and counting, it's safe to say that Chris Benz is a popular guy. At his Spring presentation, the designer announced that he'll be lowering his price point to reach a wider audience, explaining, "I have such a great fan base and wanted to bring everything we love and stand for as a brand to as many of them as possible." The latest lineup will go for less but still offers Benz's signature quirky aesthetic. And in other business news, he also introduced a denim capsule, as well as a collaboration with Cambridge Satchel Company—clearly Benz is firing on all cylinders.Believe it or not, this season was influenced by the notion of a zombie apocalypse and "people's attraction to the macabre," according to Benz. "I wanted it to be pretty in an off-putting way," he said. That translated to eccentric, layered outfits like a bracelet-sleeve, hexagon-print topper shown over a mixed floral midi-length dress and wide-leg jeans, for example. That's only a mild instance of the power piling going on here. Crumpled polyester trousers, chunky sweaters tied around the waist, and "garish" paillette-crocheted blankets all made frequent appearances. While many of these pieces would work just fine on their own, the more-is-more styling suited Benz's inclusive message—although we wouldn't recommend wearing a dress over a skirt over pants anytime soon.
10 September 2012
Images of a sunglass-clad Marilyn Monroe and swatches of neon fabrics filled the mood board at Chris Benz's Garment District studio. He took his girl on a "tropical travel fantasy" for Resort, where every print coordinated with the others and nothing wrinkled. Tapping into a vacation mind-set, he lined almost every piece with power net mesh, so you could toss it over a still-wet bathing suit. And for the girl who can't be bothered to put an outfit together on her way from the beach to brunch, there was a white lightweight cashmere maxi dress. The collection's standout was a classic floral shirtdress cinched at the waist and shown open over pants of the same print. Benz emphasized his carefree American spirit throughout, accenting each look with brightly colored, oversize baubles by The Woods, an Aspen-based label that the designer has worked with for several seasons. (The circular pendant necklaces were a humorous take on an Elsa Peretti classic.) His overall message? It's time to have fun.
30 May 2012
According to Chris Benz, women have finally come back around to the art of dressing up (he may have a point, based on a few of the ostentatious front-row fixtures spotted this week). "I remember sitting in my mom's bathroom, watching her get all dolled up while listening toThe Judy Garland Holiday Special," he mused. "And now girls are making the effort to be glam like that again."Channeling this nostalgia, Benz presented a Fall collection that at times felt like watching a Turner Classic Movies marathon. Costume wigs, pillbox hats, cabaret soundtrack music, and a gold sequined backdrop amplified the retro vibe of the clothing. For example, tea-length frocks with voluminous petticoats were paired with shrunken cardigans reminiscent of fifties sweater girls. Slim cigarette pants shown with astrakhan pullovers trimmed in mink could've been pulled straight from Holly Golightly's closet. The playful colored fur coats here were a high point, and there were several more straightforward pieces like a structured wool raw-edged topper and printed wide-leg pants that would integrate seamlessly with a modern wardrobe.
12 February 2012
There's something devilishly beguiling in meeting fashion's demands with matching madness. "Everybody was going crazy this summer with the heat wave," Chris Benz said at his presentation. "We were all in the studio, and I just decided to go with it. It's Andy Warhol's superstars go to Coney Island, with a nod to candy kids." That fantasy played out in trippy florals and sixties-inflected prints in lime green, neon pink (to match the designer's dyed hair), and sherbet orange. If the eye wasn't already boggled, then there were the optic black-and-white circular patterns on textured cotton matelassé.In contrast to the unabashed prints, the designs were much more modest. Benz liked the idea of "messing with the Upper East Side lady" ("perhaps the craziest of them all," he said), and hemlines ran below the knee and necklines hovered high up. The best looks, though, had a slouchier feel. In one refreshing pairing, a bright sky blue silk tunic topped a loose pair of heavily beaded Kelly green drawstring pajama pants. Styled with a pair of sneakers made in collaboration with designer Alejandro Ingelmo, it got the gist of rich-woman eccentricity.
11 September 2011
Chris Benz does Resort for the true resorters—but not at the tropical destination many of his contemporaries are envisioning. "Miami is the path of least resistance," he said at his showroom yesterday. "Bermuda is overlooked."Bermuda it was, then—paradise of vacationing English royalty in the nineteenth century. And, actually, that suits the Benz aesthetic of fusty-meets-fancy quite nicely. Old and new were mashed together with exuberant abandon in this collection, which adapted several Benz standards (like tweed suiting, shown with—what else?—ribbon-belted bermuda shorts) and introduced new categories, such as swim. Prints met prints (abstract leopard spot, nautical stripes, oversize flowers) on silky blouses and baby-doll dresses. Benz isn't the only designer thinking of mixing prints and color blocking, but this offering was especially and intentionally collection-as-collision-course. Maybe that explains the raw edges throughout and the need for comfortable shoes (splatter- and floral-printed sneakers by Benz's usual collaborator, Alejandro Ingelmo, the first women's sneaker the accessory designer has done). If vacation isn't time to let your hair down, when is?
7 June 2011
Chris Benz is now part of the fashion mentorship program at SCAD, Georgia's famously libertine art school, and the job has sent him down to Savannah with some regularity. The city has proven inspirational. "Savannah is such a strange place," Benz said at his presentation today. "Caught between Southern decorum and the influx of art school kids—it's quite a collision." You could hardly script it better. With his taste for slightly dusty, granny-takes-a-trip finery and a puckish sense of fun (he's currently sporting a pointy quiff dyed several shades of Manic Panic neon), Benz just about embodies that mash-up himself.The city's stately old mansions sent the designer scrambling for interiors and upholstery fabrics; the results, reeking of Southern gentility, included pieces in velvet and Lurex-threaded tweed. The famous Savannah ghost stories lent themselves to spooky prints of pluming smoke. But while the backdrop has changed, the Benz aesthetic has traveled perfectly intact. Key silhouettes have a playful, campy appeal, like a series of trapeze dresses topped off with giant bows; their shape was echoed in swingy cape coats with Pologeorgis fur or shearling trim. Overall, a darker palette predominated. But a two-tone butter-colored leather dress harked back to sunnier days.
13 February 2011
Chris Benz doesn't do quiet. His clothes (and his shows) are joyfully, sometimes dizzyingly loud. Whatever his inspiration of the moment—and for this moment, it's Americans in Paris, circa the sixties—volume is a constant. A trapeze minidress in traffic-cone orange leather? It's practically a fire alarm.Shrinking violets, in other words, need not apply. Benz likes dressing to be fun, and the girls who love his clothes do, too. (Judging from the attendees at his presentation today, that pack includes such disparate dollies as Carmen Electra, Denise Richards, Kelly Osbourne, and Real Housewife of New Jersey Caroline Manzo, fellow foghorns all.) Scattered over sales floors, many of the pieces he showed should do very well; even Plain Jane would bloom in a pair of Benz's electric blue floral cigarette pants, worn here with matching platform mules by Alejandro Ingelmo. Fuller skirts and some wider pant legs hit the mood of the moment, and the pleated A-line minis were properly cute. Once again, Benz worked with Loro Piana on his knits, which were judiciously restrained. They had a funny way of sticking with you, actually; when the neon was limited to piping on a polo or small blocks on a bikini bandeau, it packed more punch. This being the Lincoln Center season—Benz showed at the complex's airy atrium—one might've wished a conductor had been consulted. Ask one, and he'll tell you: Nobody plays the whole symphony cranked up to 11.
12 September 2010
As his starting point for Resort, Chris Benz was thinking of the midcentury ceramist Sascha Brastoff, whose Los Angeles milieu included another of the collection's muses, Carmen Miranda. (During his time in the U.S. Air Force, Brastoff even impersonated Miranda for a USO show.) Flash and flamboyance are hallmarks of both CarmenandChris, of course, but Benz had a few promises at the outset. "No fruit baskets!" he said with a laugh. "Carmen Miranda was quite a tomboy in the forties."Defining the tomboy on his terms, Benz showed abbreviated little jackets, fastened with spangled belts, in duchess satin, and high-waisted cotton sateen pants with stovepipe legs. Colors throughout were more tempered than in seasons past, but a brilliant green sponge-print suit in grass cloth—a favorite fifties interiors fabric—brought the saturation for those who might miss it, while a Brastoff-inspired print in black and white introduced a graphic element. The usual party dresses? Yes, there were a few—but, acknowledging the need to stretch himself, the puckish designer said the whole aim of the collection was "to bring the Chris Benz girl to a new era in her life." Vide a section of tweeds—very lady-who-lunches, albeit with a Benz twist. Take a closer look: The fabrics were actually silk organza, woven with ribbon and tulle, and a "gold husk tweed" shot through with Lurex. Well, no age limit on shine.
9 June 2010
Outward Bound Debutante was the title for Chris Benz's latest effort. "It's inspired by those bad girls I knew in high school," he said. "The ones who got sent away to wilderness camp. This is what I imagine them wearing."A gold anorak, a hand-crocheted tank dress, cargo jackets with fur trim… Benz's vision was definitely moreTroop Beverly Hillsthan backwoods rehab, but somehow it made sense. Highlights included a violet and mustard plaid blazer with jewel-encrusted lapel, a simple but distinctive metallic sweatshirt, and any of the mid-calf-length eveningwear, which the designer described as "so nineties," though they actually felt totally modern. (The neon yellow fur-trapper hats and mittens, however, might not make it beyond the runway.)Benz is not the go-to for basic tees or classic trousers, nor does he try to be. "I want every piece I produce to be incredibly special," he said. Luckily, his unique point of view all but guarantees him a niche in the market.
14 February 2010
In a season in which designers are distilling their more creative impulses into practical (read: sellable) options for potential shoppers, how does Chris Benz justify the massive rainbow-hued marabou shrug enveloping one of the models at his Spring presentation? "It's time to have fun again with fashion," the designer declared. "I just wanted to make great clothes for going out." In the playful spirit of the Memphis Group, Benz offered a forties-style peplum dress in a giant polka-dot print, separates dripping in dime-sized sequins, and a baseball jacket with matching miniskirt. Hemlines ranged from fingertip-length down to the floor. There were plenty of pencil skirts that would work for daylight hours at the office, but at heart this was a free-spirited collection for gadabout night owls. No, there wasn't something for everyone, but Benz's posse will find plenty to party in.
13 September 2009
Childhood trips to his grandparents' place in Palm Springs inspired the latest effort from Chris Benz, a mix of structured pieces—statement blazers trimmed with trompe l'oeil sequin "bangles," gabardine pencil skirts—and billowy silk separates. Clever details—flat studs that evoked a polka-dot print, for example—enhanced the wearable collection, which Benz whipped up in the yellows, oranges, and turquoises he's known for.
31 May 2009
A little-known fact about Chris Benz: He's a real estate addict who scouts properties in his free time. This goes a long way toward explaining his unusual choice of venues: For Fall it was a raw warehouse space in Chelsea that once stored road salt but became, in Benz's imagination, a guerilla club for the woman who wants "to escape into the darkness of downtown from her Upper East Side town house." She can run, but she can't hide, not if she's dressed by Chris Benz. His autumnal palette featured Yves Klein blue, yellow, and fire-engine red, applied to wools and cottons and even to metallic-foiled leather and fur.As always, there were quirky takes on preppy staples, including an evening skirt done up in coppery sequins and paired with a charmeuse tee, an anorak of color-blocked sheared mink, and a blazer paired with a strapless peplum dress. These had less of a deliberate "granny's attic" quality than they had in the past, and more straightforward confidence. They were "designed," the J.Crew alum said, for people "to buy" (in other words, specifically with an eye toward what pieces had sold best in recent seasons). Are you listening, Michelle Obama?
15 February 2009
Chris Benz has built a solid reputation for himself as a designer who can take specific historical points of reference (say, a thirties starlet or an old French woman) and make them thoroughly apropos for today's girls-about-town. In the past, his specific brand of quirk has been love-it-or-hate-it, but a crowd-pleasing Spring collection should win him a broader fan base."I looked at Revolutionary War-era dressing," the young designer said, "but interpreted it in supermodern fabrics." There were a number of military jackets, sure, but done up in slub linen with an abstract chrysanthemum print and the muted-bright palette that's become a signature. Benz deserves props for his measured approach to femininity. A silk T-shirt dress with tiers of ruffles could have gone very wrong, but in his hands it looked very right. And while a parade of ripped and rumpled low-slung pants worn with boxer shorts felt forced, slouchy burlap engineer pants and silk two-toned trousers hit the nail on the head.Instead of showing his clothes intableaux vivants, as he has in the past, Benz mounted a full-on runway show at the 37 Arts off-Broadway theater. Though less atmospheric than his past venues—like the New York Yacht Club—it was also less of a precious gesture. An elaborate whitewashed and drip-painted structure of found objects ("this, like, temple thing we put together," Benz semi-explained) was the only set, leaving the audience to appreciate the clothes on their own terms.
7 September 2008
Candy-colored twinsets, a jellyfish-beaded "souvenir" T-shirt, and a fifties floral print adapted from upholstery fabric all mingled in Chris Benz's madcap "good taste, bad taste" Resort collection. Although the designer cited the archetypal Floridian granny and Carol Burnett as inspirations, these clothes—triple-layer chiffon jackets, chartreuse toppers, and a camp-style shirtdress—are sure to find takers in today's thoroughly modern Millies.
1 June 2008
Chris Benz's Fall collection began to take shape on a trip to Paris with friend Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, where the two sat in cafés, becoming enamored with the style of French women—older French women, that is. "I love the idea of a funny old woman pulling wrinkled clothes from 50 years ago out of a suitcase," said Benz. "I always like that weird girl." She was certainly on display—sporting fur fezzes and zigzag Shetland knits, no less—at his presentation held in the literary environs of the Lotos Club, where the designer once again showed color-coordinated tableaux vivants.Benz pronounced this collection both more tomboyish and more polished than previous outings. It was both those things—and stronger for them. Since he launched, the designer has learned to limit his quirkiness to smaller doses, while keeping his fearless and enviable sense of color intact. It's a treat to see Benz's vision in full bloom—a world where such precocious ensembles as a red, white, and blue checked suit over a pale lavender shirt and magenta oxfords seem logical. But this collection also had simple, strong pieces that could be pulled out to stand on their own, like a plain silk tapered T-shirt dress, and Benz's chic take on the comfort of a sweatshirt in a terrific and easy boxy, layered silk blouse.Looks like these suggest that Benz is aware of and adjusting to a particular challenge he faces: He has created his own particular image, but while he's built up a healthy business thus far, marketing quirkiness isn't easy. Time will tell if the young designer can make his world one that everyone wants to be part of.
3 February 2008
"They made me wear a jacket," said Chris Benz at his presentation at the New York Yacht Club. He was explaining his outfit: a proper navy blazer, white shirt, and tie, teamed with not-so-proper frayed khakis cropped to the ankle, well-worn Chuck Taylors, and his multifarious wrist wrappings. As it turned out, he brought the same kind of engaging eclecticism to a sophomore effort that confirmed this young designer as a talent to watch.This season's muse was a restless thirties starlet, stuck at her house in the Hollywood Hills and apparently amusing herself by trying on a closet brimming with clothes, hats, glasses, and jewelry.The designer has a confident hand with color and it was shown to good effect in three chromatically arranged tableaux vivants. Though they ran the gamut from little ladylike silk jacquard suits to a denim jacket and striped V-neck pullover, most looks achieved what Benz calls "the casual moment." Tuxedo shirts were recast in chiffon with dropped shoulders and worn with soft wide-legged pants; a linen shirtdress had a similarly floppy ease. Wide-brimmed straw hats and beaded bracelets that mirrored Benz's own look cut through any leftover seriousness, as did terrific patent-and-mesh penny loafers from Christian Louboutin. Though the designer has heretofore been "anti-gown," he added bright, bias-cut versions, including one in cotton jersey. His muse couldn't very well not have something to wear on the red carpet, could she?
9 September 2007
In an art-filled gallery at Christie¿s, we met a gaggle of insouciant bookworm types with a quirky dress code and a killer sense of color: Chris Benz, at the dewy age of 24, cast his first-ever show as a trio of set pieces starring girls who threw together looks in a mash-up of styles. Jodhpurs were worn with pajama tops under roomy, lightweight tweed jackets; a calf-hair jacket topped rugby stripes; wool shorts mixed with a micropleat chiffon tank and a delicately embroidered tulle cardigan.Pea coats, trenches, and boxy jackets came not double- but quadruple-breasted. Some of Benz¿s color combinations (dusty blue with mustard and navy, acid-bright turquoise with navy and rust) could easily have gone terribly wrong. But instead they struck all the right chords. This was definitely a strong breakout from the starting gate.
4 February 2007