Awaveawake (Q3802)
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Awaveawake is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Awaveawake |
Awaveawake is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
What if a garment could change your life? Not in some far-off, metaphorical way but in a practical, real sense? It might sound ludicrous, but Jaclyn Hodes’s Awaveawake pieces have the potential. A student of yoga, Reiki, and color therapy, Hodes imbues her collections with intention and potential. The entire line is made using plant dyes in Bali—just six organic substances are used to make the full color range this season—with the hope that the qualities of the plants will seep into the wearer’s skin. So slips aren’t red just to be red; they’re dyed using mango leaf and sappan bark to tap into an “intense, primal lower chakra.”The organic approach Hodes takes is the real story behind this Spring 2020 collection. Season after season she repeats many of her classic shapes; slip dresses, easy wrap tops, a sprinkle of innerwear, and a single trouser are on offer this season. It’s not complicated stuff; rather it’s the sort of straightforward clothing a nomad like Hodes herself would like. In a chaotic world, pieces that promise relaxation and ease, or a chakra boost, can sometimes be enough.
8 October 2019
Jaclyn Hodes has just returned to New York from Topanga Canyon, where she had gone to live the California dream a few years ago. It was a pilgrimage the designer felt destined to make since 2011, when she began practicing Kundalini yoga. “I had done yoga for 10 years before that, but Kundalini was the full fantasy lifestyle,” she said. “There’s a way to dress, a way to be.” Though the reality of that fantasy left something to be desired (hence her return to the East Coast), it gave Hodes a better understanding of herself and her seven-year-old brand.Her translation of yogic principles is best illustrated by the nonrestrictive drape of her signature bias-cut silk slips, which are colored with 100 percent natural plant dyes by a Bali-based artist. Unlike the wave of independent home dyers, who use avocado pits and crushed petals to deliver a delicate tint, Hodes’s pieces are richly pigmented by locally harvested material. “They’re literally machete-ing the mango leaf, pulverizing it, and putting it in a vat,” she said.Those pulverized greens render a rich mustard-seed yellow, which Hodes used throughout her new collection. Other hues were culled from the colors she encountered at different times of day to create “an almost blurred vision of the Topanga scenery.” The deep turquoise, for instance, was a blend of indigo and mango leaf that recalled sea and sky, while the bordeaux-color backless dress came from crushed sappan bark on silk.Awaveawake iterates on the same silhouettes each season—the slip, the loose pant, the robe, the cape—which can get a little predictable. Hodes’s strength lies in her application of color theory to add a therapeutic layer to these basic shapes, such as the soothing effect of a pale pink or the grounding energy of a deep red. Many women will buy into that, particularly those New Yorkers still clinging to their own L.A. fantasy.
8 March 2019
Driven by a deep connection to the earth—and her California environs—Awaveawake’s Jaclyn Hodes has never lacked for inspiration in her own backyard (nestled in picturesque Topanga Canyon, no less). This season, though, Hodes took a cue from the transformative tones that echo the scenery of Hydra, Greece, a romance that felt like a fitting interlude and welcome departure from the expected. The depth and unique vibrations in the interplay of vivid corals, sun-deepened peaches, ripened olives, and Aegean blues found in Hydra’s ambient light brought life to the sustainable collection’s signature diaphanous silhouettes and lent them a soulful appeal. Designing solely in silks for Spring (with charmeuse and some chiffon as layers), Hodes continued to successfully iterate on her brand of luxury basics. As is her custom, slip dresses continue to be the backbone of Hodes’s collection, strongly rendered for Spring in bias-cut waistband and front-seam versions. The designer knows her strengths, still delivering the lengthening A-line tailoring and sophisticated subtlety of label- and print-free pieces, but she also kept it feeling fresh with standout capes, her take on a bed jacket, and a choli top, inspired by traditional sari dressing. The line’s lithe layers are where the designer has cut her cloth, so to speak, but for Spring, she experimented too with structure, designing a waisted backless halter dress and louche trouser pants into the mix, which will no doubt expand her appeal. Equally alluring were those aforementioned colors, using natural botanical dyes (sometimes leaves, sometimes bark, and even flowers) that vividly alchemized the silk, giving it a unique, almost transcendent luminosity. Looking no further than Hodes’s Spring ’18 video featuring Kirsty Hume in her neo-nymph element, it’s evident that Awaveawake has legs in the realm of foundational dressing. Not just for the sake of beauty, but for the sake of the planet and Hodes’s driving desire to protect it.
12 October 2017
Right around the time that the latestAwaveawakecollection was presented from a Paris hotel suite, Solange Knowles debuted her striking new video for “Don’t Touch My Hair.” In it, she wears a white slip dress and a diaphanous overlayer that were remarkably similar to what this reviewer had just seen among the label’s offering. Without a single print, branding, or dramatic silhouettes, these two pieces were instantly recognizable—thus underscoring how designer Jaclyn Hodes has established a signature look with subtlety and grace. It helps that she doesn’t pivot much from season to season; Solange’s look, for instance, can be found in every collection, as can several of the other fluid chemises, bias skirts, and multi-way capes—all offered in either silk charmeuse, silk chiffon, or both. And because she only uses natural dyes, the colors remain within a limited yet flattering range that includes blush, jade, ivory, black, navy, and bronze. So what’s new in this collection? Well, the versatile paper-bag trousers, which pair particularly well with the standby wrap blouses, for starters. Hodes also pushed further into midi lengths, while proposing new gown styles such as a high-neck halter.Given Awaveawake’s adaptable, indoor-outdoor approach, all those sensual peeks of skin seem inevitable, not forced. While Hodes’s eco commitment gives off a certain neo-nymph vibe, the outcome doesn’t feel limited to barefoot in the park. You need only watch British ingenue Flo Morrissey, who appears in the Spring collection video (filmed on Shiva Rose’s Pacific Palisades property) and sings its accompanying score; on her, the made-in-California clothes suggest a different femininity than projected by Solange. It’s as if they harmonize to whoever is wearing them.
25 October 2016
It’s no great news that the desert, particularly its sharp contrasts, is imagery ripe with inspiration for creatives of all sorts. Still, there was something especially fitting about Awaveawake designer Jaclyn Hodes’s embrace of the desert for Fall. Consider the defining softness of her fabrications (luminous, almost otherworldly washed charmeuse is Awaveawake’s signature) and the natural dyeing techniques, which yield a palette that seems to have leapt straight out of the badlands and onto Hodes’s garments. She’ll even go so far as to say that such dyeing imbues her clothes with a certain energy, and plenty of like-minded fans of the brand agree.Whether or not the holistic aspects of Hodes’s clothes speak to you, though, you’d be hard-pressed to argue with the appeal of the pieces themselves. Nearly all of this season’s offerings were shapes carried over from past seasons and reimagined in new colors. The designer’s popular bias-cut maxi skirts and slip dresses—as languid as any piece you could ever hope for—came whipped up in lush coral and cerulean. A great lace-up bodice top in denim with wide-leg pants, meanwhile, would look smashing on lately minted Awaveawake fanRihanna.
18 March 2016
Bali or bust! Awaveawake’s Spring ’16 collection served as a lush testament to time spent on the Indonesian island. Designer Jaclyn Hodes didn’t lose sight of her m.o. of organically luxe styles or allow the trip to set her adrift on a sea of the tangential. Instead, like last season’s Jaipur-hued outing, it served as a lens through which to subtly reinterpret all the things that have earned her label its following: the languid, bias-cut slip dresses and the tops and skirts made for layering (informed by Hodes’s work as a stylist).There was plenty of lightness to be had here. The substantial-feeling lushness of washed silk charmeuse has long been a hallmark of Awaveawake, but in the interest of retail in the warmer months, Hodes diffused her signature material with styles in easy-to-wear, easy-to-care-for cotton. Elsewhere, Fall’s hardy cowl-neck sweatshirt came to feminine new life in a floral lace. The designer’s clothes have an undeniably earthy, even holistic quality to them, but with sophistication to spare. To wit: Spring’s apron dress, with its lithe, body-skimming shape and plunging back. With pieces like that, she’ll make a sensualist out of every one of us yet.
14 October 2015
There's sexy and there's sustainable, and never the twain shall meet. Or so it largely went, until Jaclyn Hodes launched Awaveawake back in 2012, her line of sensual, pared-back clothes. "Employing eco-friendly practices without sacrificing style was the primary goal," Hodes said of the initial concept, "not just sustainable for sustainability's sake." The designer goes so far as to say she enjoys the limitations of her brand's chosen path, and the result is a sumptuous, sophisticated lineup of pieces made from ethically sourced materials (colored using plant-based dyes). Even the soft patina on Hodes' impossibly buttery silks comes from the dye process, rather than traditional and toxic sand-washing.Fall found Hodes looking at her signature styles—tie-neck blouses; bias-cut, floor-skimming slipdresses—through the lens of Rajasthan, India, with cropped long-sleeve tops that nodded to cholis worn as part of a sari, or a beautifully spare tunic dress inspired by the traditional men's kurta. The designer cut her teeth in styling, so these clothes lent themselves to versatility. To wit: There was nary a print in sight—though with a rich palette of Jaipur pink, ocher, cranberry, cream, and black, they were hardly missed. You could pair one of those slinky, lingerie-louche slipdresses or backless gowns with a cowl-neck pullover for day, or with a charmeuse cape for something black-tie-ready. Awaveawake's styles have traces of a '70s ethereality (Inherent Vice's bohemian bombshell Katherine Waterston stars in the brand's Video Fashion Week short for Style.com) that lend them a want-it-now quality, without verging on the retro; here a little of the sensibilities of Madame Grès and Madeleine Vionnet translated to something timeless and easy. The long and short of it? A lot of cool women from a lot of walks of life are going to fall hard for these pieces.
13 March 2015