Wolk Morais (Q3698)
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Wolk Morais is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Wolk Morais |
Wolk Morais is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
It’s been nearly a decade since Brian Wolk and Claude Morais, the designers behind Wolk Morais, traded the intense energy of New York City for the chill vibes of Los Angeles. Pioneers of the great fashion migration of the early 2010s, they’ve settled into Hollywood with a network of friends in the film industry. The pandemic forced everyone to find clever ways to present collections outside of traditional runway spaces. As movie buffs, they found a solution in creating films, and along the way decided they preferred the medium. “It’s helped us express our designs in a much more full and rich way,” Wolk noted.Recto/Verso is the 11th Wolk Morais collection and their fourth fashion film. The title roughly translates from Latin to ‘front’ and ‘back’, and it explores the cult of celebrity and the double-sided nature of public and private personas. Inspired by Jean Genet’s playElle, and narrated by their friend Alan Cumming, it was filmed at Western Costume, the legendary Hollywood costume house that the designers visit regularly.This collection picks up where they left off in previous seasons, utilizing deadstock textiles to evolve brand silhouettes like red carpet gowns, and sharply tailored suits and ruffled blouses that make them a go-to for the likes of Cate Blanchett, Janelle Monae, Natasha Lyonne. The concept of duality came through multiple ways: gender fluidity, interchangeability of prints and patterns, and that each item was crafted from two contrasting fabrics. Nearly all of the pieces had a bold pattern in the front and the absence of that in the back.Suits in bold plaids or houndstooth were cut with peak lapels and a fluid flared pant; A sheer bias-cut gown was sewn from ’80s couture silk devoré and lace; and deadstock denim was used for workwear jumpsuits and capes. Vibrantly-colored catsuits, styled as a base layer throughout, were made with lace leftover from the ’70s, found in a studio that specializes in dance costumes.Sustainability plays a big part in Wolk Morais collections, and the two find working within the parameters of pre-existing materials forces unexpected but interesting outcomes. It makes sense that they favor film over stills because it illustrates the texture and weight that inform the movement of a garment, and this collection deserves that screen time.
7 November 2023
Making do with less runs counter to the fashion industry’s standard operating procedure; glamorous excess is a concept we’re all more familiar and comfortable with. Yet making do with less is a practice that designers and consumers alike will be compelled to get acquainted with as we adjust to living in a time of climate emergency. After the summer we’ve had, with the fires in the west and the flooding in the east, deadstock, upcycling, and the circular economy are certain to be talking points at New York Fashion Week. The challenge at hand is untangling glamour from excess.Brian Wolk and Claude Morais, former New Yorkers who now live in Los Angeles and cater to the celebrity set (Elizabeth Olsen, Brandi Carlisle, and Awkwafina, among them), have come up with an ingenious way to go about it. As movie buffs with a home studio smack dab in the middle of old Hollywood, the designers frequent costume shops and vintage ephemera dealers. This season, they used the fabrics they found in those places for sharply tailored pantsuits, gender-fluid trenches, and red carpet-ready dresses. There’s a deadstock denim, sturdy of hand and faded to the palest of blue; a rainbow of satins and silk moirés; ultra-soft ’70s ultrasuedes; and an unusual gold mesh lamé. The magenta silk duchesse satin of a deeply ruffled maxi skirt and matching jacket is reportedly deadstock from the set ofHow to Marry a Millionaire.Wolk and Morais sell mostly by private appointment. As sales pitches go, it doesn’t get much more persuasive than, “Marilyn Monroe might’ve worn this, instead it could be yours.” This might be a tricky formula to scale; there’s a finite amount of the Marilyn ephemera out there. But that’s another lesson for fashion; small is indeed beautiful.
8 September 2021
Brian Wolk and Claude Morais made their spring 2021 film over 26 nights in Los Angeles. They’d pull up at the model’s or actor’s or fashion consultant’s house with a garment bag and shoot without even leaving their car. The result is a testament to the charm of LA living, wildfires notwithstanding. Equally, it showcases the ingenuity of Wolk and Morais’s upcycling and the multi-generational appeal of their tailoring.“We wanted to create a collection that was not only responsible and sustainable, but also content that tells a story about what’s going on right now,” Wolk explained over a Zoom call from a smoky Hollywood. And so you hear the model agent Omar Albertto in a herringbone tweed suit say, “I miss energies,” and other participants discuss how they’re pining for their friends and “the normality of being human.” Many designers have adjusted their offerings to this stay-at-home moment. Wolk and Morais have made a specialty of retro tailoring, and they’re standing by it. As they point out, their Spencer jackets, double-breasted waistcoats, and fabulous archival Liberty print shirts (all of the fabrics were upcycled or sourced within a 12 mile radius of their studio) could just as easily be worn with jeans as with the oxford bags they styled them with.Because they dress young Hollywood, they didn’t neglect evening glam either. There are pajama sets in vintage brocade—the gossip around Los Angeles is that everyone’s wearing pajamas to the Emmys—and a very 1930s silver sequin bias-cut gown. For those of us who don’t have red carpets, virtual or otherwise, in our future, they’re planning on making the same dress in t-shirt jersey.
14 September 2020
Ever since Brian Wolk and Claude Morais moved to Los Angeles five years ago, the New York transplants have mined the city’s rich cinematic culture and elements of Old Hollywood for inspiration. For their eighth collection (Spring ’20), the pair took those references more literally, creating a short film capturing screen tests of two dozen Angelenos—musician Moon Unit Zappa, artist Monica Ahanonu, model Julia Dunstall, and Lydia Hearst among them—meditating on what L.A. means to them. Naturally, they’re wearing Wolk Morais. “We’ve been inspired by Los Angeles in so many different ways since we’ve been here, exploring different parts of the city and different periods of time, from Old Hollywood to youth culture. We wanted to speak the language that Los Angeles speaks best: film,” Wolk said. “There’s also something very process-oriented about wardrobe and screen tests, which are this building block of how clothing is captured on film.”The designers doubled down on suiting, delving further into a category that’s been working for them. Blazers were offered in a more robust range of fits, from oversized and intended to be unisex, to featuring slimmer shapes and fishtail darts. Expanded too was the range of fabrics, from brushed cashmere to thin flannels that had a nice lightweight feel to them. They incorporated ruffles, a relic from their days at Ruffian, on silk micro-dot jacquards and a silk taffeta double-tiered cocktail dress that felt faintly retro but worked.The designers took a more muted approach to their palette this season, inspired by the tonal grays and faded pinks of some of L.A.’s iconic deco architecture. (The pair work out of an old Chaplin Bungalow, named for the cluster of homes originally commissioned by Charlie Chaplin just behind Paramount Studios in Hollywood). A brushed-cashmere twill trench and jumpsuit and a micro-houndstooth blouse and blazer pairing were standouts in a collection that found the duo forging more commercial iterations of their designs. As for the short film, it will be submitted for consideration at the London, Paris, and La Jolla Fashion Film Festivals this fall.
22 July 2019
Set against a mid-century backdrop, with uninterrupted views of Los Angeles below, Brian Wolk and Claude Morais’s Collection 7 was another love letter to the city they now call home. Mining L.A.’s rich art culture, the designers took cues from female painters, particularly Southern California post-surrealist Helen Lundeberg. “We love her sense of geometry and her sense of color,” Wolk said. “How she, among other artists, was able to take California nature and transform it into these incredible geometric paintings.”Suiting remains the designers’ forte. This season they experimented with fabrications, his-and-hers iterations, and design details. They used a rich medallion jacquard inspired by traditional Mexican pottery and crafts, and layered mod tunics over tonal fit-and-flare pants. Hollywood glamour came in the form of a few standout floor-length maxi-dress silhouettes with starbursts of color and shimmering sequin inlays. The show was styled by their longtime collaborator Elizabeth Stewart.Collection 7 will ship in September. Last night’s showing was timed to the launch of a Wolk Morais shop-in-shop at Fred Segal, just across the street from the presentation.
27 June 2018
Since moving to Los Angeles, designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais have found inspiration in their adopted hometown. But never more so than last night, when the pair presented their sixth Wolk Morais collection on the rooftop of the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt, with the hotel’s neon signage lighting up the runway.The pair remain enamored of all things Hollywood. Here, though, it was their cleverly evolved approach to tailoring that spoke the loudest. “Suiting is a good language for us,” Morais said. Having pushed a more masculine angle in the past, this season they used feminine forms. A double-breasted coat was cut off to become a Spencer, waists were pronounced, and shoulders were softened to feel at once buttoned-up and cool.The pair’s purposeful mix of color, print, and texture was interesting. Inspired by L.A. artist Peter Shire, the collection layered striking acidic shades with leopard silk, tiger jacquard, and even a sequin zebra pattern. With elements so strong, some appeared to be vying for attention, but the combination felt cinematic, exactly as the duo intended.
18 January 2018
“We make everything in L.A., we design everything in L.A., and we’re inspired by L.A.,” Brian Wolk said last night at his and Claude Morais’s fifth runway show in their adopted hometown. Presented at Yamashiro’s iconic Hollywood lookout, the collection was their most elaborate outing to date, widening the designers’ lens on L.A. and interweaving apt references to film’s portrayal of gender.Designing with the classic gender archetypes and antitypes of Old Hollywood in mind, the duo bucked suiting convention to bring the same tailoring to the men’s and women’s designs. Double-breasted suits were imagined in tangerines and evergreens—a palette inspired by photographer Sheila Metzner. The pair also executed strategic inflections of denim and pajama suiting. At the far end of femininity, Wolk and Morais presented sweeping English tulle dressing gowns in the richest raspberry and teal shades, complete with marabou and ostrich feathers for effect created by Catherine D'lish.Once more, the designers worked with their longtime stylist, Elizabeth Stewart. She punctuated the undone suiting and soft tailoring with gold monogrammed tank tops and gold link suspenders, a carryover from last season’s heavy metal chain link necklaces and a nod to the street culture of Melrose Avenue. While they continue to mine references, it doesn’t feel as though Wolk and Morais have been overshadowed by the wave of shows in L.A. Rather, they’re finding their footing just as the city becomes a new platform.
23 May 2017
For their fourth outing as Los Angeles–based designers, Brian Wolk and Claude Morais riffed on their love affair with their new city. The collection, which found inspiration in 1930s precode Hollywood cinema and its emboldened, sexually uninhibited stars, felt particularly resonant in the rising tide of feminist outcry postelection. It was an association that Wolk and Morais proudly embraced.“It’s freeing women from corsetry and what we see on the red carpet these days that’s not so interesting to us,” Wolk explained of wanting to soften their silhouettes. The mostly black and gold offering included rich silk velvets and silk crepes in bias cuts, with side tucks and draping that added dimension and grace to the floor-length shapes. A floral metallic jacquard chiffon side-tucked frock and burgundy silk lamé dress with a delicate ruffle-trimmed collar would prove refreshing rebukes to the cinched-in styles typically found on today’s red carpets.The duo’s collaborator, stylist Elizabeth Stewart, infused the collection with modern, nearly punk detailing—oversize gold chains and beanies inspired by the street style of local Fairfax Avenue. The designers introduced a monogram for the first time, embroidering the interlockingWandMon pockets and turning it into a punctuating gold print on a fitted sleeve. The finishing touches came in the form of supersize gold safety pins (a symbol of support for minority groups fearful of what a Trump presidency might mean), commissioned from a local jeweler in downtown L.A.
14 November 2016
For their third outing as Los Angeles transplants, Brian Wolk and Claude Morais turned to one of their adopted city’s evergreen themes: the nightlife of the Sunset Strip. Specifically, disco—which is lately alive and well at Giorgio’s, the dark, intimate dance club where the duo keeps a standing Saturday night date, and which served as the backdrop last night for whatWolkaccurately described before the show as a “site-specific collection.”Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more natural habitat for the series of party-girl (and -guy) looks that followed, many of which were expressly designed, as Wolk explained, to catch the light of a disco ball or (with the brand’s burgeoning young-actress client roster in mind) the paparazzo’s flash. What kept things from veering outright retro were the advanced techniques honed at their former label, Ruffian—spiral ruffles on dresses, baroque draping on petticoat skirts, expert tailoring on tailcoats—and twists of color and fabrication. The pair continued their successful recent experimentation with unwashed denim: “We love the idea of taking this L.A. staple and reinventing it,” Wolk said. This time around, a crisp black version was the basis for structured party dresses and jumpsuits, some trimmed with strips of metallic jacquard. (The evening’s theme notwithstanding, they would all just as easily work for lunch at the Polo Lounge, or, say, a press up-front for a starlet’s new film.) A black marabou coat, worn by a shirtless male model, suggested particularly fierce armor against the chilly May Gray outside. And if a series of magenta and poison-green Jerry Hall–at–Studio 54 dresses and jumpsuits might have felt a tad on the nose, the designers’ liquid silk lamé had a techy, want-it-now quality.As the models began their encore lap, the lights in the room went down, not up, and the disco ball overhead resumed its orbit, kicking off a dance party that lasted well into the night. It’s no shade thrown to say that these were clothes that looked best in the dark.
25 May 2016
Ruffian designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais packed up the car for Los Angeles a year and a half ago, part of the wave of westward-leaning New Yorkers. Last night, they presented their second collection for their new eponymous label, Wolk Morais, in West Hollywood, and the show was a testament to how quickly they’ve taken to their adopted home and put down roots. Elizabeth Stewart, who dressesCate Blanchett,Amanda Seyfried,Julia Roberts, and other celebs, styled the show, and her teenaged kids and their friends not only modeled in it, but also inspired the clothes.Back in New York City, Wolk and Morais used to be known for ladylike flounces and frills, and couture-level fabrications. They’ve rejiggered the formula at their new label, with raw denim, utility jumpsuits, and sweatshirts, and an occasional pair of tights for the guys who walked the show. This is the right move for them. Fashion is headed in a looser, less-fancy direction at the moment, for one, and for another, the raw denim looked really good, especially a jumper-dress worn over a silk blouse. Elsewhere, Wolk and Morais had fun with print, creating a digitized floral that turned up small and large on everything from those hoodie sweatshirts to cocktail numbers and event dresses. They didn’t leave their dressy instincts entirely behind when they left New York. That makes sense, too. There are too many starlets and red carpets to count in their new hometown. With Stewart for a “fairy godmother,” as they call her, some of those up-and-coming actresses, and perhaps some very-well-established ones, too, could find their way into Wolk Morais’s frocks. From there, it’s not far into stores.
10 November 2015