Fay (Q3112)
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Fay is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Fay |
Fay is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Arthur Arbesser is having plenty of fun at his eponymous brand, where fluorescent colors and kooky prints are the norm. At Fay, he wants to do something more elegant and refined. For Fall 2019, he pared down the playfulness in favor of a streamlined and sleek look made up of camel anoraks, olive cashmere coats, and a seriously luxe leather trench in the purest shade of butter. The way he sees it, a great coat is the linchpin of style, the piece that can elevate sweatpants or dress down a gown, so best to keep it sophisticated and essentially chic.That said, Arbesser’s Fay is not boring. He has built ideas of layering and transformation into the collection in innovative ways. Some pieces, like the one in Look 4, are actually several jackets paired together—in this case a puff base layer, a gray coat, and a burgundy gilet—allowing for endless styling options. There’s a similar cobalt coat with a burgundy cropped vest and a white puffer with removable black detailing. These transformations are clever without being fussy, and the same goes for Arbesser’s rethinks of Fay’s signature four-hook jacket in simple caramel with contrast stripes. The four-hook style has an easy parallel to firemen jackets, an idea Arbesser explored last season and has wisely stepped back from for Fall in favor of a more refined polish. The best thing here, though, wasn’t a coat but a slim tote with a single-hook detail, just the item to compel shoppers to think of Fay as more than an outerwear purveyor.
24 February 2019
Arthur Arbesser is a cerebral designer who puts himself through all sorts of hoops when dreaming up his own line. For this Fay gig, however, there is no anguish in a rationale that’s focused straightforwardly on making product that the customer wants—and perhaps to attract a new demographic to Fay’s considerable audience of longtime Italian clients. “This idea to simply do things that please a lot of people is a very freeing experience.”Arbesser was speaking at a presentation in which models lingered around mock-ups of a lighthouse, a beach with old-fashioned box sun chairs, and a walkway on which they waved large flags. Arbesser said it was a loose approximation of Sylt, the German North Sea vacation island. This season’s rendition of the key Fayquattro-gancio(four-hook) jacket—an Italian Barbour—that is such an enduring classic among this country’s preppy types was presented in various tones of soft cotton canvas, with the placket removed, and the eye fastenings stitched on the inside to make them a little less prominent. It came in different lengths, across which he laid wide stripes of color, sometimes single and bold, sometimes in several shades and faded as if by the sun.There were also two gilet versions with plackets restored in denim and canvas, and one in picnic-blanket-check nylon with matching shorts that was especially yes please. There were also leather and coated-nylon trenches, a speck of suiting, and two new fabrications of the super-long fisherman’s-duffle version he presented at his first Fay outing last season, this time in a check Japanese cotton and a cloudily transparent PVC—a little kinky for Fay’s old-school followers (perhaps). The bucket hats, rubber-dipped Chelsea boots, diagonally striped knits with transparent inserts, leather shirts, and box-pleat skirts felt like just-for-the-presentation pieces but were attractive. The rope sandals, topstitched workwear pants, and workwear jackets, conversely, looked to merit a strong run on the shop floor, as did the hoodie windbreaker in silver foil nylon. This new Fay looks strong: And, as such an overwhelmingly large part of its business is domestic, maybe it now merits a little bit of love in some markets that are unfamiliar with it.
23 September 2018
Arthur Arbesser is a cerebral designer who puts himself through all sorts of hoops when dreaming up his own line. For this Fay gig, however, there is no anguish in a rationale that’s focused straightforwardly on making product that the customer wants—and perhaps to attract a new demographic to Fay’s considerable audience of longtime Italian clients. “This idea to simply do things that please a lot of people is a very freeing experience.”Arbesser was speaking at a presentation in which models lingered around mock-ups of a lighthouse, a beach with old-fashioned box sun chairs, and a walkway on which they waved large flags. Arbesser said it was a loose approximation of Sylt, the German North Sea vacation island. This season’s rendition of the key Fayquattro-gancio(four-hook) jacket—an Italian Barbour—that is such an enduring classic among this country’s preppy types was presented in various tones of soft cotton canvas, with the placket removed, and the eye fastenings stitched on the inside to make them a little less prominent. It came in different lengths, across which he laid wide stripes of color, sometimes single and bold, sometimes in several shades and faded as if by the sun.There were also two gilet versions with plackets restored in denim and canvas, and one in picnic-blanket-check nylon with matching shorts that was especially yes please. There were also leather and coated-nylon trenches, a speck of suiting, and two new fabrications of the super-long fisherman’s-duffle version he presented at his first Fay outing last season, this time in a check Japanese cotton and a cloudily transparent PVC—a little kinky for Fay’s old-school followers (perhaps). The bucket hats, rubber-dipped Chelsea boots, diagonally striped knits with transparent inserts, leather shirts, and box-pleat skirts felt like just-for-the-presentation pieces but were attractive. The rope sandals, topstitched workwear pants, and workwear jackets, conversely, looked to merit a strong run on the shop floor, as did the hoodie windbreaker in silver foil nylon. This new Fay looks strong: And, as such an overwhelmingly large part of its business is domestic, maybe it now merits a little bit of love in some markets that are unfamiliar with it.
23 September 2018
How pleasant to walk into a presentation with low-to-no expectations and walk out thinking it was pretty damn awesome. Having not quite processed that Arthur Arbesser has come on board to design for Diego Della Valle’s heritage Italo-prep outerwear brand—and having ambivalently endured quite a few past Fay iterations—it was a delight to see a showroom packed with clever but straightforward pieces.Arbesser’s own creative process is complicated, but here he was liberated to serve the client. “There is no point in trying too hard,” he said. “I just thought, Make it a bit more fun, a bit [cooler], but keep it very wearable.”The idea was to make clothes to travel in, so it was hardly rocket science. Models pretended to speak into a bank of old-school coin-operated telephones, or embark and then disembark a huge cut-out of a train, a plane, and a moving staircase. Fay’s trademark metal fastening was attached to an appealing range of outerwear that ran from Barbour-touched waxed cotton country jackets to fisherman’s oilskin to a vinyl-coated check work coat. The Virginia coat was tweaked via fabrication upgrade to a leather collar and technical jersey, as well as a slight lengthening. There was just a hint of repressed kink in a black vinyl wide-waist, pleated, mid-length skirt worn with a metal-finish shirt under one waxed cotton coat, but, on the whole, this was an exercise in pragmatically stylish wholesomeness.Menswear represents about 65 percent of Fay’s sales, Arbesser said, and what he presented here should not deter those established customers. There were many fine pieces, but a narrow one and a half-breasted gray wool topcoat were this window shopper’s picks. Three words I never expected to write, but: Fay’s pretty cool.
24 February 2018
As Roberto Rimondi pointed out pre-show, this collection was anchored by the crackled finished and wool duffle coats and wool top coats that are part of this inherently Italian brand’s (pretty damned English, originally) ’80s heritage. Around these fixed points Rimondi and his North Pole, Tommaso Aquilano, gently explored some new territories, at least for Fay. A full-proportioned charcoal knit sweater cinched at the waist by a wide leather belt with constellations of pinprick studs set above sportily paneled knit leggings looked fash-leisure. Checked and tartan notch collar jackets above skinny, punkily zippered pants had that softly rebel air that’s in the air. Slick leathers, many of them with those prettily studded reflective bursts, plus cutesily Western-paneled silk mid-thigh grandma print dresses and the odd snakeskin biker all contributed to a sense of well-conceived, observed, and executed compilation design.Fay is meant to be an accessibly evergreen brand whose product is constantly refreshed to reflect changing tastes and times, and in this collection the designers delivered on their brand’s MO with both diligence and skill.
22 February 2017
“Original, nonconformist, free.” That’s howTommaso AquilanoandRoberto Rimondibegan the show notes that accompanied theirSpring 2017collection forFay. Backstage, before the show began, they were talking about capturing the youth vote. The success they enjoyed last season with a younger clientele has convinced the designers that their brand’s future relies on both mothers and their daughters, on getting away from what was “classic” and instead towards what was “cool.” (“Cool” was even telegraphed by the show’s attendees, like a heavily tattooed Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, who sat front row near assorted other young, photogenic entities.)The designers devoted their collection to extraordinary women “who are multifaceted, who opt out from the humdrum of daily routine.” Of course, practically all women are multifaceted and most of them would prefer to avoid the humdrum. But what Aquilano and Rimondi couldn’t quite say in words, they tried to express in clothes. Their collection seemed to evoke a kind of urban safari–going, gamine commando. They dressed her in field and safari jackets, which were shown in shades of green and black and were accented with grommeted hems or appliquéd patches in the manner of a military officer. Rather than fatigues, the jackets were paired with flouncy skirts, and rather than camouflage, they were printed in mossy-toned cabbage roses. Silky little dresses under army coats nodded both to grunge’s recent resurgence and to that old, familiar friend, “festival girl style.” (Admittedly, very abbreviated ribbed tops and very low-rise pants, in the manner of peak Britney Spears, were a less welcome return visitor.)Sure, there is a certain irony to relying heavily on military influences when promoting a collection as being, among other things, “nonconformist.” And with the current range of ongoing international conflicts, it’s anyone’s guess whether next season’s customers will be clamoring to hop into facsimiles of army garb. But there remained the odd standouts—an excellent, classic trench coat, a leafy green suede coatdress, a selection of oversize jackets (some braided and decorated, some left to their own devices)—which felt likely to bridge that coveted mommy-daughter gap.
21 September 2016
How's that old tune go—“I wish they all could be California girls . . .”? Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi turned to what they called a “new generation of Californian girls” for their latest collection forFaythis afternoon in Milan. (Think lessKaty Perry’sblow-up grotesqueries and more along the lines of the Beach Boys classic.) The truth is that as long as there has been a California, it has meant a lot of different things for a lot of different people: from aspiring starlets seeking fame and fortune to migrating families looking for gold, tillable soil, and warm weather to New Yorkers in search of green juice and a better work/life balance. California is our Xanadu, so much so that William Randolph Hearst (one of the inspirations for Orson Welles’sCitizen Kane) built his own in San Simeon. But to Aquilano and Rimondi, California seems to mean above all else cowboy boots that slouch at the ankle and breezy, folky slip dresses with really very pretty floral prints worn beneath chunky embroidered coats (denim and shearling! boiled wools and cashmere!). There were also a pair of glittering sequin fringed numbers somewhat in the vein of “Gatsby throws a hoedown” that were ultimately not as successful.Fay is a line built on outerwear—and while yes, practically the whole point of growing up on America’s West Coast is that whole top-down, sand-in-your-hair, “who needs outerwear?” thing, since when has fashionjustbeen about need? For a lady of the canyon prone to catching a chill, Aquilano and Rimondi turned out a fine sheepskin peacoat with floral embroidery, while otherwise straightforward military-inspired toppers got maroon velvet accents, or the odd posy needlework. Shirtdresses had cowgirl accents, short body-con skirts boasted fringe. The message here was something like, yes, even L.A. ladies layer, and they get a little rock ’n’ roll (or maybe honky-tonk) when they do it. And to prove that point, Hollywood progeny and brother-and-sister Fay campaign stars Dylan and Hopper Penn sat front row, fielding lots of questions about their parents, Robin Wright and Sean Penn. “We're only here for a day,” said Dylan, who admitted that she didn’t know a lot about the brand until she became involved, but loved that it was focused on California girls, having been one all her life. One hitch: These Cali-inspired clothes aren’t readily available stateside. Looks like Fay fans will have to keep California dreaming for now.
24 February 2016
One can always count on a pithy comment from those Milan stalwartsTommaso AquilanoandRoberto Rimondi. “Chaotic elegance,” deadpanned Rimondi, describing the design duo’s latest collection forFay, which is one part of theTod’sempire. It was also an apt phrase to describe many of the showgoers’ outfits as heavy rainstorms lashed the city on its first day of runway shows, causing inevitable traffic havoc and wardrobe mayhem.Butchaoticis not a word one would ordinarily use to describe these designers’ aesthetic, which tends to be defined by pristine, prettified clothes. This season their deft precision was worked on the military field jacket, a small point of reference, and its myriad possibilities. Where a chaotic notion entered, it was in setting the rigor of combat garb against traditional paisley curlicues, embroidery, ruching, and prints that had a shade of Bloomsbury about them. The elongated sleeve proportions added a more youthful element to the uniform improvisation.Floral-print dresses and pretty separates, like a cute blush suede frock, came with scalloped sleeves and cutout paisley swirls. To counter some of that girlishness, and with a knowing nudge to the designers’ desire to add a younger following to their loyal clientele, the Fay field jacket will likely have mass appeal. It hit their runway in numerous iterations: cropped and in a more urban denim version, in white. There were navy incarnations, too, and a series of embroidered styles had a semblance of Tyrolean influence. A small idea for a larger world.
23 September 2015
Something cartoonish and a bit sci-fi pop has been going on chez Fay over the past few seasons. "We felt the need to change, and clean up a bit," said Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi as an introduction to yesterday's show. The duo also used one of fashion's adjectives du moment: normal. Not in the sense of normcore—that has thankfully already vanished from the style vernacular. "We thought about the daily demands of contemporary women who lead a hectic lifestyle," they added, matter-of-factly.There was a refreshing unpretentiousness to the collection. Pieces looked straightforward and not a tad intellectualized. The gray mannish coat, the tartan duvet, and the white or light blue shirts worn with crewneck jumpers, lean trousers, and brogues were simply faultless pieces. The A-lines and sense of twisted uniformity verged toward the beatnik, but that was just an aftertaste. Getting close to this kind of tightly edited normality requires a lot of application and effort: The line between normal and bland is a perilous one. Aquilano and Rimondi managed to walk on the right side of it. Nothing screamed, but nothing made you yawn, either: The proportions and the colors were just right, and the mix of masculine and feminine was well balanced. Precise—that's how to describe it.
25 February 2015
Designers have been lifting from the streets since at least the dawn of ready-to-wear shows, 40-some-odd years ago. Way back when, it might've taken seasons or years for things to trickle up from reality to the runway. Street-style photography has made the link more instantaneous and direct: See it on Tommy Ton in June, and it's on the catwalk today. Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi said as much backstage at their Fay show this afternoon. But while their efforts to make Italians "less bon ton" are laudable, Aquilano and Rimondi were way too keenly influenced by Nasir Mazhar's brand of streetwear. They employed a very similar font to the one the London designer uses for his underwear elastic logo, and otherwise borrowed heavily from his sporty vocabulary—see the similarities between their basketball shorts, hooded anoraks, and backpacks and those in Mazhar's men's and women's collections. There's definitely a market for streetwear at the high end. Marcelo Burlon, for one, reports that his County of Milan collection is in 450 stores around the world. As an outerwear brand, it makes sense for Fay to get in on that action, but if Aquilano and Rimondi want to join the party, they'll need to figure out a way to do it on their own terms.
17 September 2014
It's a street-style-obsessed moment. Any girl who has tried to get her picture snapped by the photographers outside the shows knows that a great coat can be her ticket in. Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi, the designers behind Diego Della Valle's outerwear-focused Fay brand, are tapping into that. At Fay this season, everything was camera-ready: The red quilted jacket trimmed in white Mongolian lamb was no ordinary puffer; a shrunken leather and wool varsity jacket turned to reveal a fur back; and a toggle coat had bold rugby-stripe sleeves. Hybridization of this kind has become a thing following the huge success of Chitose Abe's Sacai. The Fay guys made the look theirs with this collection's playful co-ed vibe.Elsewhere, houndstooth was supersized to cartoonish proportions on a zip-front coat and abstracted as a design motif on a chunky ribbed pullover. Both were great pieces. Other sweaters featuring Snoopy's little yellow friend Woodstock were way too easy, but we can already see the street-style pictures.
18 February 2014