Batsheva (Q3843)
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Batsheva is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Batsheva |
Batsheva is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
The big news at Batsheva for pre-fall is the introduction of soft cashmere knits in burgundy and cornflower blue florals that evoke vintage wallpapers. “It’s cashmere made in Nepal, isn’t it beautiful? I’m going to keep growing it; these are just the pieces I was able to do in time [for this collection],” Batsheva Hay said at an appointment inside her NoLIta boutique.Hay spends a lot of time at the store and it’s clear that it’s changed her creatively; since it opened in March, she’s doubled-down on her most Batsheva-ish instincts. “I’m really just making the things where I’m like, this is perfect and classic; there’s not another brand that makes this,” she added. To wit: her Victorian blouse with a high neck, a peplum, and ruffled sleeves is back, as are her popular Racquel a-line shift and her mini prairie dress.There are other pieces made to transform the way one can wear her core offerings; these include a pair of Carrie Bradshaw-esque capri pants with a banded hem, and straight leg pajama-style pants in a cotton floral (in a long and skater-short versions). She emphasized the handmade here; a quilt made with a “Sunbonnet Sue” pattern was turned into a skirt (and came with a little blouse to match); and a dress and skirt were constructed of fabric scraps safety-pinned to each other to create a patchwork. She also showed a shimmering pink elastic ruffled tube that can be worn over the shoulders as a mini cape, or as a skirt/peplum layered over a dress (she layered it over one of her prairie styles in the lookbook to great effect). Further emphasizing Hay’s commitment to doing things her own way is the fact that some of the collection will be available now, and the rest next summer when the collection typically ships.
13 December 2024
For official purposes, the Batsheva spring 2025 show took place at her store on Elizabeth Street. But in real life, Batsheva Hay and her cohort of models and co-conspirators took over Elizabeth Street entirely. They waited for a red light, blocked the crosswalk, and then out came a violinist, performing Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One,” along with her group of 16 models, all carrying little paddle boards with numbers on them like they used to do in the early days of fashion shows. They did this a number of times in a span of two hours. It turns out the city denied Hay a block party permit, but she’s always been a bit of a punk at heart.Hay opened her store in March of this year, and it’s obvious that it’s become a major creative driver for her. Her friend, the artist Tim Snell painted the floors of the store in an abstract animal-esque print in shades of tan and brown and blue that Hay said she wanted to turn into a fabric. She made good on that promise, opening the show with an easy knee-length belted dress with puffy sleeves, and a sports bra and flared yoga pant set—no really, made from spandex for actually working out!—both in that very same print. As for the rest, she was feeling a very “back to school vibe,” with lots of plaid flannel, denim separates, and kilts that joined the stable of core Batsheva dresses. A highlight of the collection was a trenchcoat with a kind of ruffle running down from the shoulders that Hay described as “very Madame Bovary-esque and work appropriate,” made in both denim and a dark mossy green twill. If passerby saw something they really liked, they could make note of the number then walk into the store and buy it. There are sure to be a lot of Batsheva shopping bags floating around the city today.“Usually for a show I am trying to find a place to build a world,” Hay explained outside her store among a throng of well-wishers. “Now I have a world, and I’m very close to this world, I spend a lot of hours in this world,” she said, referring to the store. “I didn’t need to create a world elsewhere. This show is about the people who support me in every way.” She combed through her Instagram to look at the people who had tagged her on their ’fit pics, and messaged them to see if they’d like to be in the show—a few of them even flew in from out of state.As the last model finished her walk, a man in his 40s or 50s riding a motorcycle pulled up.
I overheard “I’ve lived in New York all my life,” and was unsure about where he’d be going with it. But he continued, “and as a born and bred New Yorker, this is exactly the kind of shit I live for. You’re just going about your day and then boom, you stumble onto something special like a fashion show. It’s so beautiful. Congratulations.” Then just as quickly, he sped away.
8 September 2024
“The vibe is a little bit business—I’m really trying to be very practical.” Batsheva Hay wasted no time getting to the point of her resort collection. We were looking at a handsome, heavy black denim skirt suit that was typical Batsheva: a vintage-inspired batwing jacket with four small buttons and a tie at the waist, worn with a pencil skirt, both with matching white piping trim. In the look book, the model is wearing one of the designer’s signature button-down shirts with a ruffled collar. It was all a little Melanie Griffith inWorking Girl. Ditto a ruffled-collar short-sleeve blouse (another one of her signatures), which she paired with another pencil skirt, both in a semi-sheer peach organza with yellow embroidered flowers. Remember when Griffith (as Tess McGill) says, “I’ve got a mind for business and a bod for sin”? That one’s like that.“This whole season is like, Is it holiday, or is it vacation? So I did both.” For holiday: her classic metallic ruched skirts, slinky blouses and dresses, and oversized bows in both disco silver and liquid gold. For vacation: a series of caftans (“they’re my new obsession”) modeled after the one worn by Lori Belilove, the founder and artistic director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation & Company, when she opened Batsheva’s fall 2024 show back in February.“She only dances in two shapes, and one of them is this rectangle,” Hay had explained at the time. They are all one of a kind. In the months leading up to her store opening in SoHo back in March, the designer had been “buying up all these vintage fabrics” as inspiration/decoration options for her space. “It’s really about being able to use bits of them here and there—I don’t need to find massive yardages,” she added. Two versions out of many she showed made it to the final look book: one with a yellow mustard bodice and a skirt in that peach silk-chiffon fabric with flowers, and another in a honeycomb-esque green plaid, paired with a homely green, lilac, and purple floral print. (Special caftans aside, most of her prints this season are black-and-white florals.)“What I’m really leaning into is this one-of-a-kind thing,” Hay continued, showing a simple tan cashmere sweater embellished with crochet flower squares. The idea is to individually embellish each sweater with whatever comes to mind—“rhinestones, studs, crochet—to turn something that is produced in a group into something special.
” This is also an effect of her recently opened store; now she has a place for her more creative pieces to live within the context of her own universe. “Nothing in this collection is my typical bestseller,” she added. “This is all a shift, something new.”
10 June 2024
The lights went down at Starrett-Lehigh for the Batsheva show and a quintet began playing classical music. Out came Lori Belilove, the founder and artistic director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation & Company—and a woman of a certain age—wearing a rectangular-shaped black velvet V-neck sack dress with a slit at the leg and silver embroidery on the neckline. She danced with alternating restraint and abandon, slowly making her way down the runway, setting the tone for what would follow: some joy, a bit of whimsy, and a whole show full of women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.The show opened with Molly Ringwald—now a swan, formerly everyone’s dream teenage girl—in a black velvet shift dress and a short hooded cape, her hands held in front of her inside a lace trim muff. (“Because why not?” said Hay.) Then came Amy Fine Collins in another black velvet shift with a scoop neck and lace trim, a bit like a French maid uniform, but on Fine Collins it was somehow the chicest little dress (with a wink). A third black velvet dress, this time with the signature Batsheva silhouette stuffed with tulle underneath for volume, was worn by another older woman with long white hair. Though Hay said she was simply wanted to see women like herself on the runway, the effect it had on her clothes was remarkable—not just because of the diversity of their body types but because of the way they carried themselves; the lives they brought to her dresses. It was especially interesting, given that Hay broke onto the scene with little girl-inspired dresses.Highlights from the collection included a leopard-print swing coat with black trim detail on the neckline, sleeves, and across the chest; a slinky jersey dress fitted on the body with an A-line skirt and oversize white button embellishment; a great vibrant ultramarine purple skirt suit whose jacket had oversize sleeves, white piping details, and a tie at the waist; and another skirt suit with a double-breasted jacket, this time done in all over reversible sequins, which flipped from white to silver and had a glamorous yet punk effect, like paint peeling off a wall. Many of the looks were worn with polka-dotted little platform Keds, part of a collaboration. The sequins, Hay explained, would be immediately familiar to anyone who has children. “It’s on everything,” she said at a studio preview, a comment which a models who was there for a fitting with her 10-year-old daughter quickly co-signed.
Though the piece that is destined to become the IYKYK item from the collection is the intarsia knitted sweater with the wordHAGemblazoned on the chest, modeled by one of New York’s OG cool female designers Victoria Bartlett. Although many models were friends of Hay, a good number were also street cast and on at least one occasion the designer and her team checked out dance classes. “When I stopped people, the one reaction they all had was like, ‘Why would you ever want me?’, so that actually made it more exciting. Like they don’t even feel visible.” Now we just need the rest of the industry to catch on.
14 February 2024
For pre-fall, Batsheva Hay is keeping her eyes on the prize. “I’ve changed my approach to just be about what my person is going to buy right when the clothes are delivered in the summer,” she said at her husband’s photo studio, fresh off of shooting the season’s lookbook. “I’m not making one piece that I’m not going to produce. Strangely, what that ended up meaning was no prints—except for the one funny 4th of July situation.”The “4th of July situation” is a new version of her “Apollo” blouse, which features slightly voluminous shoulders and an exaggerated ruffled collar, in a red cotton twill fabric printed with white stars, and a pair of bloomer shorts pieced together with blue gingham. The blue gingham (“because, again, high summer”), was also used to nice effect on a ’50s-inspired strapless dress with an overskirt, and an easy a-line skirt with an asymmetrical drape.From a sheer fabric with flocked irregular polka dots, leftover from previous seasons, she made a sleeveless dress with a high ruffled neck and the triangular ruffled motif she’s been leaning into lately; as well as a new version of her popular “Grace” blouse, paired with a maxi skirt trimmed in the blue and white gingham. The juxtaposition between these two fabrics made for an interesting visual element, especially on the gingham waistband, which gave the illusion that the skirt was worn over a pair of men’s cotton boxers—very in right now.Elsewhere, there were new versions of the dresses that have become her bread and butter, some with laser cut flowers, others with pink lamé, and a few more pieced together from blue and black cotton to create geometric patterns and shapes. Most intriguing this season was a short black dress made from layers of tulle featuring an iridescent bodice. “I’m making dresses for bat mitzvahs, or like quinceañeras or a sweet 16, like coming of age dresses,” Hay said, showing it off. “That’s kind of the next thing I’m exploring—the girl to woman moment.”
14 December 2023
The designer Batsheva Hay is in her experimental era. For the past few seasons she has been pushing against the limits that delineate what her brand can be, the things that she’s allowed to make—the trick being that she’d set those original limits herself. “I have no classical fashion background, so I learned with cut-and-sew garments, and it was all handed off,” she explained in a quiet storage room in her studio in the Garment District a day before her show. “I used to feel like I couldn’t work with the garments. I had to hand things over, then pick them up, and it was very nice for my lifestyle. Then I’d go home and nurse my baby and then hand her off, pick the clothes up, pick out the buttons or whatever.” She laughed at the familiar juggling of so many women who go home at the end of a workday for a different kind of work. “But now I find the really fun part is tearing things, shredding things, adding little bustles, pinning things onto things. And I do think that’s an important part of what distinguishes my brand from other brands; that there’s a little bit of naivete in it. It’s not quite feral, but just the amateurness of it all.”These “grotesque experiments,” as Hay calls them, involved her pinning a surplus of cotton placemats and oven mitts that she had lying around. “I just started safety-pinning them on my body, and I thought, Oh, it’s so sexy,” While the oven-mitt dress feels very much like oven mitts that have been safety-pinned together when you’re just “being goofy,” the experimentation did take her to some groovy places. Like the dress made from delicately embroidered cotton placemats, which has a sort of romantic quality to it, and the top made from floral-print cotton placemats, which Hay draped over a white cotton “cheerleader full-circle skirt” with turquoise godets further propped up by a hoop skirt underneath. If it all sounds a little nutty, it is, but it also feels wearable and oddly accessible. Hay expanded, elongated, or otherwise stuffed some of her go-to silhouettes, like the turquoise dress modeled by Amy Fine Collins, which is one of her bestsellers, and the high-waist, pleated skirt in turquoise with embroidered kissy prints, which she makes every season in different fabrications. An oversized white T-shirt was stuffed underneath a corset and worn with a white ball-gown skirt, and it looked fabulous and odd. The clothes are fun because Hay is clearly having fun while making them.
(She was also having fun at her presentation inside the new BondST restaurant at Hudson Yards, where models holding little number signs walked around guests, midcentury couture show style, while Hay narrated the looks and then opened the floor for questions and comments from the audience.)On the day of my studio visit, Hay was wearing a turquoise version of the floral cotton gown modeled by Jordan Roth; its silhouette could be best described as Disney princess, with its oversized bow at the bust, full skirt, and built-in cape—and yet, made from a very humble cotton fabric, it seemed like any other day dress one might wear on a sweltering hot day. “It’s not a commercially sensible dress, because who wears a cotton dress with a cape?” she asked. But couldn’t she make the cape detachable? “I could…but I don’t think I will.”
8 September 2023
“It’s an interesting moment,” Batsheva Hay said during an appointment at her midtown studio. “I’ve gone completely black.” It’s true that almost every piece in her resort collection is black, white, or gray (and sometimes also silver, bringing major drama to a slim column dress and a very ’50s dress with a blouson bodice and flowing skirt with pockets. She added, “I get uncomfortable when there are too many things in the collection that aren’t pieces that I love. So I’ve really tried to make it what I want to wear now.” Proving her point, she was wearing a version of the ’50s dress, done in black and white cotton.In recent seasons Hay has been experimenting with various directions she can take her brand—and her customers—without completely abandoning what has made her successful in the first place. For resort that meant new silhouettes and barely any printed cotton. “It’s really all about different fabrics,” she said. Highlights included a black velvet long sleeve dress with a white lace-up detail running from bust to shoulder; a streamlined maxi dress with flared sleeves and a slight mockneck in shiny black sequins, and a long ruched body-con velvet dress in a dark wine color (one of three colorful pieces in the collection) with a high neck and a slightly padded shoulder.Hay may be queen of the dress, but she loves a matching set, and she had some great options, including a black high waist a-line skirt and button-down with a “funny firework embroidery” in sequins; a four-button jacket with dramatic ruffled sleeves and a matching maxi skirt in an abstracted floral silk jacquard; and a black taffeta button-down and matching cropped bootcut trousers decorated with all-over rhinestones. Though it skews more serious than her usual offerings, resort still bears her off-beat charm. “This one is very Wednesday Addams,” she said at one point, describing a black dress with lace ruffles on the skirt, though Wednesday would likely find more than just one piece she loved in this collection.
9 June 2023
This season Batsheva Hay traded the runway for a presentation. Hay named this collection “The Self As A Dress,” and walking into the Bortolami gallery in Tribeca, it was easy to expect a solemn performance piece inside a white box. The mood inside was playfully chaotic. Rolling racks with Batsheva’s fall collection—many of them doubled up—filled the space. Models, including many of Hay’s friends and collaborators, wandered the racks taking things off and putting them on. They walked around modeling their new outfits, sometimes holding a square piece of lucite with whatever was on their mind at the time (“I love this!” “Trans Rights,” “I wish I had a tail”). In the middle, a row of white Batsheva classic Prairie dresses hung on a clothesline. As time went on, models and attendees were encouraged to write their feelings on those dresses. In the corner someone was playing Radiohead’s “Creep” on a theremin. This wasn’t a presentation, it was ahappening.“It’s actually more alive than even I thought it would be,” Hay said in a quiet corner “backstage.” “The idea kind of started from this experience of people coming by my studio to try things on,” she continued. “Kembra Pfahler came over one time, and a woman from my synagogue was there with her daughters, and it’s people who in normal life would not cross paths; but here they were trying things on, reflecting on each other and commenting on how they looked and it became so much fun.” It had the very familiar—and almost forgotten—feeling of being at the Barneys Warehouse Sale: women from all different walks of life dressing and undressing, sharing mirror space, and commenting on their finds. It was a democratizing experience. “Fashion Week can feel very stuffy and it’s not really what I’m about, so this is the way for me to represent and to have it be about feelings also,” said Hay.But what about the clothes? For a few seasons now Hay has been exploring and pushing the boundaries of what her brand can encompass. “I keep trying to do different things, and when I succeed is when I make clothing that my grandmother’s grandmother would’ve liked,” she said. Standouts included a long dress in a brown wood-grain print (drawn by a friend) with black velvet ribbon detailing; a gray quilted pinafore mini-dress worn with a floral printed blouse and accessorized with a white bow at the neck; and a gorgeous brown floral velvet coat made from deadstock fabric with rhinestone embellishments.
A very ’90s proposition of corset and ballgown skirt looked exactly right for today in blue silk taffeta or white PVC. Hay’s knits are consistently one of the highlights every season, and a turtleneck sweater and matching skirt in a white circle print on black (it doesn’t feel right to call it polka dots) was a winner. The finale dress was made up from two past season gowns‚ one from last fall and another from spring 23. (“I can’t loan them out anymore, so I spliced them together,” said the designer.)There was an ivory moiré ruffled blouse with a black velvet bow and matching midi-skirt with pearl buttons down the front. In the lookbook image it looked like classic Batsheva, prim with an edge, but at the presentation, worn by a model who had a triangle of bright orange curly hair and bright pink rouge on her cheeks and her eyebrows, it looked straight out of an early ’80s Susan Seidelman movie. This too is part of what Hay was trying to convey with the presentation—what the self brings to the clothes, and how they can transform you and make you feel. “It’s the kind of clothing that’s meant to last, which is meaningful in these times, right?,” said Hay. “It’s clothing for my soul to access epigenetic influences, the stuff I’ve learned from previous generations: I feel the clothing in my bones.”
15 February 2023
Batsheva Hay has the seven year itch. “I’ve been really opening myself up to other ways of dressing, and seeing how people react to the clothing,” she said at her showroom in between market appointments. “I think I’m going through a little ‘rejuve,’ looking back through other ways that I used to dress.”The core Batsheva aesthetic is still here, but the designer is indulging her weirder impulses, often with winning results, as seen in dresses and separates made from a white and green oversized floral print. “There’s this whole thing now about how you need large-scale prints because people only shop online,” Hay said, a little bit conspiratorially. After all, she’s made her brand on hyperfemme teensy florals (that eventually begat a series of successful collaborations with Laura Ashley). The dress, of abbreviated length with long balloon-ish sleeves, and contrasting Peter Pan collar, was made more interesting by a series of black ribbons that cut across the bodice diagonally. A maxi skirt in the same fabric was constructed from diagonal panels cut on the bias that alternated the floral print with a contrasting fabric in ’90s VHS blue. “Some of it doesn’t make sense, [but] I just wanted to put these colors together,” she said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know if to other people it seems successful or not, but I like it.”Elsewhere, Hay continued to strongly advocate for dressing in sets; little jackets-as-tops paired with bloomer shorts done in gray corduroy, red taffeta, or, most convincingly, with a mini skirt in peach lamé. Navy dresses with crystal embellishments also looked really special, especially the model with spaghetti straps with an empire waist detail—it would be at home at any number of semi-formal occasions, or, alternatively, layered over a white t-shirt. The designer’s knitwear, though currently just a small offering of a vest and a cardigan, seems brimming with promise. The chunky pieces in white or black with floral details and blanket stitch trim seemed like they could’ve been a treasured score at a thrift store. They looked great paired with her structured mesh zebra print pieces, and even better with black cotton dresses and blouses with a smocking detail at the chest in contrasting white thread. “I’d avoided smocking for so long,” she said, “but I guess women like it because it gives them room to move.”
12 December 2022
The scene was happening at Ben’s Kosher Deli on West 38th street. Busy Philipps, Chloe Fineman, and Coco Rocha hung out in booths while servers walked around offering coffee and orange juice. Of course this place could only be the setting for Batsheva’s spring collection.This season Batsheva Hay wanted to challenge herself. “I started thinking about Gunne Sax, because I’ve so Laura Ashley’d myself out that I was like, ‘Let’s go into this more ’70s kind of vibe,’” the designer said after the show. “I was appalled by how I continually make such frumpy garments, and I thought, the only thing I can do is try to do something sexy, show more skin and make it sexy… or whatever.” The sexiness was there in the fabrics, like the white mesh with black flocked velvet stars that was used on a short princess sleeve cropped top with Batsheva’s signature ruffle on the chest, worn with a matching mid-rise maxi skirt (complete with red lace underwear visible underneath). It was also there in the Working Girl-esque ensemble of a slim button down shirt tucked into a pencil skirt with a peplum, all done on a red polka dot on white fabric and accessorized with a floral print tie and red polka dot mesh gloves.Hay’s challenge to show more skin resulted in bikini tops, lots of PVC, and a wide variety of shorts including bloomers—in an all-over bow fabric with a corset-inspired cotton shirt with a sailor collar, and modeled by Kembra Pfahler—which seemed to epitomize the vibe of this collection. There was also as a flared short, and a Bermuda that Hay described as “a sort of ’80s Escada-esque thing.”The cast included Jordan Roth, Hari Nef, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, SamRon in a shiny red PVC dress, and Jemima Kirke and Alex Cameron, who opened the show in sort of matching white PVC wedding looks. “This felt like a really big show,” Hay said, “Post-COVID, I’ve never done anything that felt as grown-up, so I kind of looked back to where I started, and largely I am still using the same shapes, but they look completely different because I’ve changed proportions, I’ve changed fabrics.” She added, “I wanted to make it like it was me, but also kind of unrecognizable.”A 1980s pastel upholstery fabric left over from Hay’s home re-decorating was used in an oversized blazer worn over sparkly mesh trousers and a matching bikini top.
Elsewhere there were a few gowns that may not have fit into her demand for more skin, but were attractive in the confidence of their shape: a spaghetti strap dress made from a pink with black polka dots taffetta fabric was cinched at the waist like a cummerbund, and overflowing at the bust with ruffles. Another came in a purple iridescent fabric with a slight sweetheart neckline and a big bow at the waist, and a high-low overlay over a column skirt. It was Dynasty, it was over-the-top, and it was unmistakably Batsheva.
14 September 2022
Batsheva Hay was ready for some change. “I’ve been growing, and I’ve just really been spitting out lots of styles,” she explained on a recent morning over Zoom. “This time, I really wanted to tone it down, and we did that on the shoot. It was a whole collaborative experience.” The “we” in question refers to Hay and the photographer Quill Lemons, who shot the lookbook — a first, given that her husband, the photographer Alexei Hay, has photographed all the lookbooks and campaigns since she began her brand. Hay says she went big when making the clothes for this season, but there are only 20 or so looks that made the final edit. (“The rest I will be wearing in my personal life,” she said.)For resort, Hay focused on party dresses that would work from day to night. “All the buyers are telling me, no one wants day dresses anymore. Everyone wants party dresses,” she said. She looked to late 1960s-1970s Yves Saint Laurent as a reference point, like with a cream cotton dress with a black velvet bodice and ruffled collar, or a multicolor sparkly mesh layered maxi dress that was made for a casual hostess welcoming someone to their house with a tray of artfully prepared canapés and drinks. A navy taffeta slip dress with contrasting white trim and white floral embroidery felt like a new direction for the designer — especially with the angled bodice that artfully exposed the decolletage. Also present is the dress that Lexi Howard, played by Maude Apatow, wore in the New Year’s scene inEuphoria. “I was like, throw it in, you gotta get it,” Hay added laughing.Two gowns, modeled by Veronica Webb and Molly Ringwald, who “happened to drop by the shoot,” also felt like fresh additions to Hay’s oeuvre. Webb’s bohemian long sleeve dress with black velvet trim at the empire waist and balloon sleeves was an adult, minimalist version of a ren faire frock. Meanwhile, Ringwald’s acid lemon structured gown, also decorated with black velvet ribbon bows, was clean and sleek in its design. “I actually got too excited making it, and I ended up wearing it out to an after-party for the Met Ball,” the designer recalls. Batsheva the label is such a perfect representation of Hay herself that it’s almost impossible for the designer to make a misstep. When this collection drops, she will likely not be the only one thinking “I need to wear that now.”
18 July 2022
“It’s big, broad, and for everything she might want to do,” says Batsheva Hay of her fall 2022 collection. Years ago, she once joked that there were only four things to do with her style of ruffled prairie dress. Now she has pushed her aesthetic into housecoats, and sweatshirt skirts, and pajama sets, and quilted vests, and blouse and skirt sets, and tiny scalloped edge knits, and… well, you get it. Hay is putting her twist on almost every category, denim to debutante dresses.It might read as a commercially minded play, and, yes, more clothes means more opportunity to expand the business, but as Hay tells it, this season was really about taking all the (sometimes unsolicited advice) her friends and customers have been giving her for years. “People always send me pictures of Sharon Tate’s wedding dress,” she says, “so finally I just made one.” Her take is denim with dusty rose velvet trim. For those who want body-con, there is a tight maxi dress covered in funny crochet granny squares. Simplicity seekers have asked for black: Now Hay has her most streamlined, no ruffle black velvet dress with vintage ribbon trim. A gray cardigan with hand-crochet trim is a tip from Jenna Lyons, who advised Hay to just remake all her popular blouse shapes as knits. The many velvet coat-dresses, with prim bows and sweet little hoods, are Hay’s advice to herself: Something cute and sweet for all weather.The glue that binds her diverse work together is her own sense of quirky weirdness. Of the grandma-style florals she says “you need something a little repulsive!” Not abandoning her weirdo sensibility while being able to expand into new realms is her great strength. Let’s see how it plays out at her party at Casa Cipriani tonight.
13 February 2022
The allure of Batsheva has always been designer Batsheva Hay herself. She started her brand making clothing she’d like to wear, then friends in New York propelled her personal designs into a business. In the four years since, Hay’s operation has grown immensely, with global stockists and categories like homewear, accessories, and fun collaborations. In Manhattan, she’s moved out of her home office and taken over two spaces in New York’s Garment District: One holds her studio and design team, just down the hall a room overflows with floral prints, ruffle dresses, and tiny tchotchkes in Hay’s ditsy patterns. For pre-fall, she scans the rail in her studio and says, half surprised, “For the first time I’m making things that I wouldn’t wear.”How can a brand so personal evolve and succeed as its orbit grows beyond its iconoclastic founder? The good news is Hay is always—and has always been—willing to share her weirdness. Even if she holds up a block print checkerboard print, a bustier maxi dress in black, or a tank dress as items that don’t jibe with her personal style, she is quick to find ways a Batsheva acolyte could incorporate them into their wardrobe. Layering remains key. New dress shapes like a mod babydoll in black eyelet and a ’70s-inspired, A-line shirtdress broaden the offering and edge it, just maybe, into more quote-unquote normal clothing territory.Of course even a Batsheva basic comes with a little cheeky wink. Her chambray shirts and white blouses are predicated on giant pouf sleeves and adorned with excess eyelet ruffle trim. There is a new pajama set and a continuation of her pantaloons and ruffle-trim trousers, now in dusty caramel florals and navy moiré. The tenor of this kinda weird, kinda normie clothing feels right as we kiss 2021 goodbye and look forward to the first (we hope) good new year in a while. Everyone will come out different, a little better, a little worse, and a lot stranger.
7 December 2021
Held in the sugary acid trip that is Serendipity3, Batsheva Hay’s spring 2022 runway show pushed her ruffly, girly aesthetic to electric new heights. There were crinolines, yards and yards of silver lamé, diva-worthy gowns with early-’60s swing backs, and simple white eyelet sundresses with tie-dye tights. The show, which started with a ballad and swung into grunge, was so saccharine and knowing, one guest remarked it must an homage to John Waters—just look at the bouffants.But Hay wasn’t doing Waters. She was doing herself, as always. As the world opens up, Hay explained post-show, she can’t stop thinking of home: starting her brand in her home, her family in her home, and the freedom we have in our private homebound moments. Dialing up the collection’s glitz and campiness was her way of honoring dressing up at home, that moment when you throw it all on, do too much, and feel fashionable and free of peering gazes.It worked so well in Serendipity3’s kooky environment and on Hay’s cast of models, actresses, and friends. Busy Philipps, Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Veronica Webb, Lauren Servideo, and more New York legends took turns in cascading frills and electric coral dresses. It takes a person with presence to carry Hay’s exuberant gowns off, and on the backs of so many actresses, the garments could almost seem like costumes at times. They are certainly special occasion pieces. On the way into and out of the show, no less than five people told me about spending childhood birthdays at Serendipity3. Hay’s proposition is that you should dress every day like it’s your best birthday ever.
11 September 2021
“What does ‘probably back to normal’ look like?” wondered Batsheva Hay over a video call. She was vexed about how style might change over the coming months as reemergence begins in parts of the world. Rather than offer a prescriptive solution, Hay equated the anxious jitters of being on the precipice of a major fashion change to the idea of back-to-school style.On a basic level, school clothes make sense as an inspiration for Hay—and not just for their sweetness. She started her brand as a young mother, aiming to make funny dresses that work for working moms. Now her daughter, Ruth, is well into elementary school with a uniform of a pinafore, shirt, and cardigan. Hay has sized up each of these to an adult scale and rendered them in shades of neon yellow, brown, and cherry red, adding rosettes to the boxy sweaters.In a deeper sense, back-to-school style was always about taking a uniform and making it one’s own. Rather than hypothesize about how wearers might make a Batsheva ruffle dress or bow-trimmed trouser work in their life, Hay put her garments to the test. With her photographer husband, Alexei Hay, she set up a booth in Washington Square Park and recruited people in the area to change into her resort 2022 pieces and model for her look book.One went full Dovima in a strapless ’50s-style golden gown and kitten heels. Another just tossed an ivory dress coat over their regular clothes, coffee cup in hand. There are teen goths, lovers, sisters, NYU graduates, and passersby smiling throughout the look book, a total celebration of New York back in action.The breadth of this season’s offering is as diverse as the people in the clothes: A skateboarder wears a roomy midi-housedress in a hologram print. Best friends sport a shapeless glittery dress inspired by a traditional Hasidic style and burnout velvet pants. A roller skater chose practical black-and-white ruffles while a pair of sisters model crochet tops and skirts. This is probably as close as we’ll get to “probably back to normal” this summer—and it looks great.
3 June 2021
Batsheva Hay is continuing the cookbook look book recipe she started for resort 2021 for fall 2021. The task of photographing people cooking in their own kitchens has taken her and her husband, the photographer Alexei Hay, into homes throughout the tristate area. Once they arrive, the goal is simple: photograph each person wearing Batsheva, cooking their favorite meal. This season the cast of model muses includes Ego Nwodim, Nicky Hilton, Amy Fine Collins, and Maude Apatow, each offering a different take on clothing and cooking. As Hay recounts over Zoom, some take hours to get ready—the designer-photographer duo don’t bring hair or makeup—others require their own accessories, and some have such specific recipes they take a whole day to produce.Ideas of domesticity aside, the concept of allowing women to wear Batsheva in their own worlds is a perfect recipe for the brand. At the core, Hay offers clothing for women to live their lives in, and women’s lives are messy. Some days you’re cooking an exquisite quiche while wearing your favorite lipstick and Manolos, and other days you are crouched over a discount rug, scraping dog vomit off the floor—as happened to me just minutes after Hay and I hung up from our Zoom call. It’s hard to predict what tomorrow might bring, especially now, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a garment that did it all: looked pretty on Zoom, was comfortable to wear, and could be dressed up enough to sport at parties or picnics in the park? Hay’s roomy dresses offer that option, with sweet ruffles, crushed velvet, and bow ties to make the proposition all the sweeter.For those without a sweet tooth, Hay is also expanding her traditional ready-to-wear. She has made jeans for the first time, two pairs with ruffle trim and elastic waists, and continues to expand her knitwear offering. Corsets and cummerbund details are built into her dresses, offering a smart styling solution. No matter how you cut the cake, these are delightful clothes for dressing up in your own world—a place free of gaze—that will also make going into the real world all the more manageable.
16 February 2021
Maybe it’s the quar brain talking, but the more I think about Batsheva Hay’s collections, the more that each one feels like aQueen’s Gambit–style move to legitimize the complexity of womanhood to the fashion industry. Hay has taken the symbols of femininity, domesticity, and intimacy and made them things for women to be proud of, not ashamed of. Typically, the industry rewards designers who offer more modern, minimalist takes on female style—effortlessness, elegance, and unfussy are buzzwords here—or versions of womanhood that are so fantastical and exaggerated they can only be described as “whimsical” or “dreamy.” Hay’s work is neither: It’s quirky, messy, funny, and embraces the chaos of a woman’s life. Advertising copy would read: She reads in Batsheva. She plays with the kids in Batsheva. She cooks in Batsheva.For pre-fall, she really does cook in Batsheva. The collection’s look book stars real women, from club legend Susanne Bartsch to actress Gretchen Mol, wearing her latest wares in their own kitchens. Hay and her husband, Alexei, the photographer, traveled around New York taking the portraits, discussing the recipes with each woman, and eating each meal. The results will be published in a cookbook next year. “Seeing the way other people wear the pieces is so important,” Hay says, stressing that each piece must feel like “a wanted garment.” If it doesn’t elicit love from her ladies, it doesn’t get made.The garments that did get made continue to recast the possibilities for ruffles and floral prints. Hay is leaning into big ’80s graphics and piecrust collars à la Princess Di. Those developments, she explains, were designed with an eye to our Zoom lives. From the waist up, she’s offering a new bolero jacket, added embroideries and details on yokes, and expanded her offering of crocheted tanks and hooded pullovers. There’s even a bustier. It’s shown layered over new taffeta dresses, but one imagines Hay’s more daring fans will wear it bare underneath. Pants, skirts, and a new wrap dress round out the offering.“When I started, I thought I would run out of things to do with ruffles on dresses pretty quickly,” she says with a smirk. But trying to define what it means to be a woman in this world is an endless journey—and one of constant reinvention. And, hey, maybe the men are next! The 20-year-old photographer Quil Lemons has been wearing a metallic silver Batsheva dress around New York. Wouldn’t it be interesting if more guys followed his lead?
15 December 2020
There is much talk of changing fashion “because of all this”—but what about the ones who don’t need to change because they’ve been doing it right all along? The ones who were already thinking small and intimate, recycling silhouettes and fabrics, and connecting with their consumers directly through social media and DTC shopping? The ones stripping away the pretension, and celebrating the creativity and the reality of fashion?In speaking with Batsheva Hay, one can’t help but feel that she has, in fact, been right all along. She launched her brand with an unmissable signature, and evolved it however she felt right in her heart. When it came time to change because of the economic downturn of the COVID-19 pandemic and because of the chaotic mess of the fashion system, Hay didn’t have to change too much. “Fashion is about dressing,” she declared on a video call, during which she sat on the floor of her midtown studio in a green polka-dot dress from spring 2021. “It’s an answer to how people want to dress: Be comfortable. Wear something not too expensive, but that feels elevated.” As a brand, she explained she wants to “exist in some way in ordinary lives.” These ideas are revelatory only in the sense that listening to one’s customer base and thinking soulfully and practically happen all too rarely in fashion.For spring 2021, Hay proved she is unmatchable her in field. Big dot dresses, like a pillow with the stuffing pulled out, appear alongside sensitive wallpaper print high-collared midi-dresses with dainty embroideries and prints of sinuous acid green figures that evoke the work of Aubrey Beardsley. There are, perhaps, more ruffles and bows than before, each alighting on a V-neck or high shoulder without the irony of Hay’s past creations. A pair of knot-pocket elastic-waist pants and a taffeta gingham mini have a new sincerity: Much of Hay’s oeuvre is about playfulness and camp—ideas so needed!—but something about spring 2021 rings simpler and more pure. The ironic thing about that is that this season marks the rare lookbook that doesn’t star Hay and her arsenal of Cindy Sherman–esque characters posing around Manhattan.The rationale, she explained, was that she had spent so much time already in lockdown with her husband and her family that it became appealing to do a bombshell photoshoot with a model, Lameka Fox.
Natasha Royt styled, and Batsheva’s husband, Alexei Hay, photographed, and the paraphernalia of the Batsheva world were the shoot’s costars; the designer has expanded into rings and plans to enter furniture and fragrance soon. Also new are granny crochet sweaters, a capri-length romper, and a simple khaki blazer with sparkling buttons. She calls the blazer her “Ralph Lauren moment.” It’s apt for the blazer and apt for her brand. Lauren was another underdog New Yorker who wanted to offer a solution for how people want to dress: something comfortable, not too expensive, but that feels elevated. He “made it” by never compromising on his vision. As long as Hay doesn’t change, she’s on the right path.
9 September 2020
Batsheva Hay might be the most popular designer in New York fashion right now. Over the course of NYFW, almost a dozen people reached out to me about Hay’s presentation, knowing I would meet her for this review. “Is it a show?” “What time is it?” “Can we shoot street style?” The truth was Hay and I met in her Garment District studio, just us two and her small team, to check out her wares in a personal, intimate ceremony.The next question: What’s with the figure skaters? Hay and her husband had conspired to shoot this collection guerrilla style in the American Dream mall, and stumbled upon a figure skating competition on the day they went to scout locations. “Part of what I’m always trying to prove is the wearability of my clothes,” she said, “and athletic movement is the definitive wearability test.” The skaters spin, twirl and jump in Hay’s chiffons, cottons, and custom flower pot embroideries, frozen mid-gesture by the camera. It’s not glamorous, and with some of the kookiest styling ever offered from a Batsheva lookbook—and that’s saying a lot—the images of the clothes are impressively bizarre.Don’t let that be a deterrent. Hay’s current mission is to expand her world, bringing in evening-worthy sparkles (a category buyers have told her performs best), vintage flocked wool trenches and even a red bustier “going out” top. It’s proper hot, which is fully funny coming from Batsheva “death of sexy” Hay. For prairie girls not ready to give up their pastoral vibes, Hay offers ruffle V-front dresses and smocks, as well as velvet leopard with a wider, less Victorian neckline. She’s making bags, belts and headbands too. As Hay becomes more and more popular, so must she become more things to more people and service more markets. That’s the cost of doing business, but Hay must be careful to not push her expansions too far. Being the most-buzzed about, most popular designer in New York puts her at risk of losing her special shine.
12 February 2020
Batsheva derives its strength from its single-mindedness. The high-neck, nipped waist, ruffle sleeve, full skirt dress that made designer Batsheva Hay’s career is still one of her most valuable and desired propositions. Making the singular, instantly identifiable item was how Hay made it, but now she has to keep making it and remaking it, and creatively, she’s moved on. Her favorite item from her last collection was a smock-like, tented dress. “Nobody bought it,” she says. But she loved it nonetheless.That smock frock has been reborn as a housecoat in velveteen leopard and crimson moiré for pre-fall. It’s one emblem of Batsheva’s new aesthetic for the season, an aesthetic defined by a wide range of away-from-the-body silhouettes. “That’s how I want to dress now,” Hay says. And what Hay wants—and who Hay is—remains the backbone of Batsheva, even if her taffeta confections have become favorites of the celeb set. Pre-fall is a compromise of sorts. New, loose shapes abound, like a high-neck smock dress with golden buttons and menswear-ish separates like a Western work shirt and a chore coat. Hay’s choice of fabrics—a mix of vintage quilting materials and unlikely fashion candidates like burnout velvets and suit linings—keeps a continuity between her twirly circle skirts and more structured day dresses. Her familiar fit and flare silhouette is still in play, now in light and short shapes, which could appeal to new clients, ones that, maybe, saw Natalie Portman or Beanie Feldstein in a Batsheva number and want to get the look themselves.There are also stretchy pants, base layer turtlenecks, and vinyl rain jackets in colors and prints that range from acid green to all-over orange fruits. No matter how many new ideas she tries, Hay’s personal obsessions guarantee that her singular voice will remain unique.
10 December 2019
Batsheva can be vexing. The brand built in the image of its founder, Batsheva Hay, has confounded the fashion and pop culture worlds since arriving on the scene in 2015. Is it modest? It is sexual? It is a fetish or a uniform or a performative expression of self? It is even fashion at all? Before her show at the New York Law School today, Hay explained that she was tired of answering everyone’s questions—read a little deeper and you get the sense that maybe she is peeved at having to find solutions to other people’s problems or fascinations with her—so she got someone else to do it. Actually it was a group: Jamieson Webster (a psychoanalyst), Chiara Bottici (a philosopher), and Melissa Ragona (an art historian and theorist), three academics in three diverse fields who would, a press release promised, “engage critically with Batsheva’s newest collection” while models walked through a lecture hall in the law school. Writer and podcaster Aminatou Sow introduced and moderated the panel. “They make me feel like a pioneer woman who can’t be fucked with,” Sow said of Batsheva’s garments.The lecture was called “Neck, Wrist, and Ankle: Recurrence in Batsheva’s Clothing.” Each speaker presented her essay accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation of pertinent details and helpful quotes. It was the sort of high-level brainwork that liberal arts graduates turned women in the arts would relate to; the sort of high-level brainwork that pseudo-intellectuals would love to pretend to understand; and the sort of high-level brainwork that Insta-girls will screen-shot and quote on social media. So in many ways it was the sort of cerebral performance that has mass appeal. Hay’s panel of critics laid out lots of excellent points too, including a description of her clothing as “defense of the tender areas of the body,” a bit of praise for her garments for doing justice to “unrecognized feminine labor,” and a wise linguistic deconstruction of the wordstextandtextile.So lots of rich, heady stuff here. Which was fantastic to watch unfold with a cast of celebrity friends like Melissa Gilbert, Kaitlyn Dever, Dianna Agron, Veronica Webb, and Gretchen Mol. But it was also a bit of a bummer because the perfectly tuned, incredibly self-aware performance distracted the audience from the clothes. Hay will readily admit she is not a trained designer, but her Spring collection advanced in leaps and bounds.
She introduced new materials, like a slinky, semisheer chiffon and a black oil-slick rubberized nylon. Her silhouettes were more waisted than ever, tied and cinched with a wide belt. Separates abounded, such as kerchief-hem aprons and a tunic worn by Rory Culkin. One of the best pieces was a nightie style with an embroidered note on the leg that summed up the fever and the fury of Batsheva perfectly:Victorian Secret.Backstage before the show, Hay spoke about her home life as a reference for this collection. She works from her apartment and describes her time inside her space as when she is able to imagine freely, to dress freely, to be who she really is. She dreams in her home—and maybe does a little self-analysis too. Her clothes give that promise to the world: to dress like no one is watching. The problem is, of course, that people are always watching, but this show was a testament to not letting others get in your way.
12 September 2019
For Batsheva’s Resort lookbook, designer Batsheva Hay and her photographer husband, Alexei, ran around Manhattan shooting the collection guerilla style in their favorite places together. No models. No makeup. No stylists. Just a married couple marking some of their most cherished spots in the city where both grew up. It’s sentimental in an honest way, a real expression of who they are and what the brand they built together represents. “Our whole schtick is we’re doing this together,” Hay says from the kitchen of their apartment, where she is holding appointments to see the Resort collection; the space doubles as her office. Her children’s photos and artworks are taped to the walls, and toward the end of our meeting, both her son and daughter come clamoring in, with Hay’s husband in tow, cheering about their rock-climbing class and hugging their mother.Batsheva is, and always will be, a brand meant to express this one woman’s obsessions. That’s what makes it alluring, singular, and strange. But it is also, slowly, becoming a bit more democratic—and not because of the American-flag dress in the Resort collection. Hay wants to broaden her reach without losing her “special sauce.” She’s doing it by introducing more layering pieces and movement into this collection. Tops almost outnumber dresses; some sweet square-neck tanks border on mainstream, while a pure white, unadorned pouf-sleeve blouse is shocking in its simplicity. Full skirts come with ties at the hip to transform the shape into a dress, and there are several iterations of pants, including a legging. A legging! In a custom purple-and-yellow checkerboard, it’s not exactly the omnipresent workoutwear you’re used to, and better for it.Unlike many other labels at a similar price point, Batsheva isn’t just going to iterate on a single shape with new colors season after season. Now well into the swing of her brand, Hay wants to play with silhouette, fabrication, and function. It’s an exciting turning point for her label, the chance to become a bit more universal without losing her charm. She’s off to a good start.
29 May 2019
Grunginess is not something typically associated with the twisted loveliness of a Batsheva dress, but in Courtney Love designer Batsheva Hay has a kindred spirit. The patron saint of sweet-but-lethal dressing loaned lyrics from some of Hole’s hits for models to read aloud at Hay’s Fall 2019 presentation before descending a spiral staircase in her West Broadway pop-up. Love also scrawled, in red marker, the lyrics for “Good Sister/Bad Sister” on Esther McGregor’s finale look, a bridal maxi dress inspired by one Love almost wore to the altar. The performative aspect of it all—seamstresses buzzing away on Singer sewing machines; models seriously reading lyrics, and then crumpling up and tossing away their papers; ambient live music playing in the background—made for a transporting experience. The snow was gone, the day was gone; there was only this coming together of the female spirit.If the presentation raised the bar, the clothes rose to match. Hay has been slowly expanding her repertoire, introducing separates, bags, and even pants in recent seasons. For Fall she introduced a collaboration with Holly Hobbie on ’80s-inspired fabrics, as well as new shapes like a drop-waist ruffle dress and a velvet coat in rich emerald. Shoes in Day-Glo colors with a Victorian inflection were made in collaboration with Irene Chung. Hay’s kookiness might be her calling card, but an orange moire dress with crystal buttons was downright essential. Worn with a floral headpiece by Dennis Lanni, that look had a timeless, ethereal feel.For a designer once deemed too niche, too specific to ever make it, Hay has proven that her nostalgic pieces have broad appeal. You could see it in the range of women on the runway today, from Christina Ricci to Veronica Webb, and in the many diverse customers that crowded into Hay’s pop-up by the hour. Could it be that, in the face of #MeToo and society’s ongoing misogyny, we are longing for the childlike innocence and girlish beauty that a Batsheva dress promises? It’s a simple proposition, but one that still has a little bite.
13 February 2019
In Batsheva’s Pre-Fall 2019 lookbook, designer Batsheva Hay’s clashing-print frocks, smocks, and tunics transform Coco Rocha into characters and caricatures of herself. In one photo she’s framed by a fan of legs in black tights and stilettos. In another she’s in the bodega with a bowl cut and pinafore. In a third, Rocha has an enormous head and tiny body, somewhere between aDownsizingversion of herself and a Bratz doll. On the surface it might seem like more of the same from Hay, but with this collection the designer is taking the Batsheva brand to new places.Having participated in the CFDA/VogueFashion Fund and dressed celebrities from Natalie Portman to Mandy Moore this year, Hay has begun to evaluate of the realities of her business. Her Pre-Fall collection is thus merchandised in orderly groups to appeal to retailers and also introduces new silhouettes and separates. The first section is composed of childish printed pieces in custom ’70s-tinged patterns. There’s a cute tent dress with contrast floral prints and a button closure on the shoulder; a vaguely ’40s skirt suit with a flared hem and peplum top; and a trompe l’oeil smock dress in Raggedy Ann gingham and swirly florals. There are even pants. Hay, who mostly adheres to Orthodox Jewish mandates of dress, has begun to think about modesty outside her own religion—Muslim women often wear pants under abayas; shouldn’t they have the option to do so in a red tiny-dot print?Elsewhere, Hay expands on these shapes but in solid colors intended to clash: peach with egg blue, wine with forest green, coral and icky brown. The last group in rich jewel-tone velvets and leopard prints is arguably the most mainstream of Hay’s offering. It would be inaccurate to call these piecespractical, at least compared to jeans and T-shirts, but they do represent a streamlined, function-driven approach from Batsheva. For the woman adverse to blending in, these will be a fantastic reality.
19 December 2018
Fashion is not ready for Batsheva Hay. Take a look around the industry and you can count the women changing the narrative or impacting the culture at large on two hands. Meanwhile, there are dozens of dudes issuing semi-annual diktats on how women should look, setting in motion a trickle-down effect that, in the end, seeps into women-run businesses and women’s wardrobes around the world. No wonder the rich, fit, wellness-obsessed, and influential women of Manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn had—and are still having—a tantrum about Phoebe Philo leaving Celine. But they have not yet fully embraced Batsheva as a ranking member of their tribe. Maybe they shouldn’t; the clothes can be a little tricky, a little loud for loudness sake, but when any man with a graphic tee is lauded as acréateur, a provocateur, a disruptor, Hay’s work only deserves more respect for how unique and difficult it can be.For Spring 2019, she produced her most fully realized manifesto on the essence of Batsheva yet, and it’s a real trip! Her presentation took place at the Square Diner in Tribeca, where models were gussied up in sock hop cat-eyes and bouffants, handing out milkshakes, french fries, and Champagne. The clothing has moved beyond the prairie styles with which Hay made name thanks to several new shapes and materials. There was a “dragged down” ’80s party dress with a tiered ruffle skirt, a pajama-inspired top made in collaboration with Christopher Niquet, and an all-white number to offer something cleaner and “more naive,” according to the designer. For evening, the lamés were sparklier, the colors were shocking-er, and the silhouettes were just a little shorter, too.This says nothing of the lookbook, a through-the–looking glass experiment in . . . what to call it? Selfie culture and Cindy Sherman–inspired self-obsession? It floored me. Photographed by her husband, Alexei Hay, and styled by Bill Mullen, the designer wears a series of wigs and religious and shamanic accessories in vignettes around Manhattan. I have no idea how to read the images or what they have to do with the bebop, “Greased Lightning” dinette scene of earlier in the day, but I kind of don’t care. I laughed. I gawked. I clicked. Maybe Hay’s taking the piss. Maybe she needs to hone her brand voice and find a more legible narrative. Or maybe we should celebrate that she has a singular take on fashion, one so freakishly fabulous you can’t look away.
Let’s let her tell it: “I feel like what I go for is this place of discomfort, like the tension between too feminine and off, too naive and childlike and tired old lady, between pastel Laura Ashley and grimy city, old vintage dress. When you see a prairie dress, it’s usually more straightforward, really going for a fantasy world, but I’m trying to make it a twisted fantasy.” It’s a beautiful, dark twisted fantasy, and you should indulge her.
12 September 2018
Who said uniform dressing had to be minimalist? For designer Batsheva Hay, her uniform is a frilled and fun frock that she can wear all day long with anything from sneakers to heels. Hay’s own dress code is the inspiration for Batsheva, and in many ways this collection is really all about Hay’s own obsessions and life. She functions as her own fit model and designs for what she needs and wants, rather than imagining what some far-off woman might desire or what might pump up her sales. The method works because Hay is enmeshed into New York’s creative intelligentsia; her design process and desires are colored by those of the plugged-in and witty women around her.For Resort, Hay has expanded her offering ever so slightly. On one end are the even more fantastical pieces, like a minidress with heart-shaped pockets in a cherry red color or a moiré version of her signature ruffled silhouette in a rich raspberry color. On the other end of the spectrum are pieces that could appeal to those previously afraid of Batsheva’s big colors and bold shapes. Separates are a newish thing in this arena, like a cropped Victorian blouse or an easy full skirt. Hay has also introduced a longer silhouette that, while still trimmed with a ruffle at the hem and sleeves, is devoid of the girlishness that colors the rest of the collection. Dare I call it tough? With moto boots or a catty stiletto it certainly could be. There are also plenty of new accessories, from puffy headbands to bandanas to sarong-scarf hybrids, that will provide a point of entry to Hay’s world for new customers and a gotta-have-it piece for existing ones.Still, my hope for Hay is that she doesn’t get swept up in style numbers and bottom lines, and keeps her eponymous collection as more of a self-expressive art project than a full-blown fashion collection. Her own intuition is what makes Batsheva so singular in the market. Where else can you hear a designer talk about obsessively scrolling eBay and Etsy for vintage quilting fabrics and actually believe it? Perhaps her lookbook, shot in her mother-in-law’s artist studio with a certain maverick panache, is her own way of saying, “I’m an artist, too!” I believe it, and so should you.
8 June 2018
Batsheva Hay’s dresses are unmissable. In ditsy, retro patterns and colors, the full-skirted, ruffle-trimmed pieces stand starkly apart from anything else you could find on a runway or in a store in 2018. An attorney by trade, Hay began making the cotton dresses as a hobby—she’s always loved Laura Ashley shapes and prints—and they quickly started to catch the eyes of people in the fashion industry. Her Fall 2018 collection was presented on an unassuming rack in the Tribeca restaurant Yves, where Hay’s friends and clients congregated at the bar, some wearing her pieces, others choosing more anonymous daywear.This Fall’s collection is a continuation of the prairie-girl themes Hay has long loved. She explains her process as very intuitive—she just gravitates to the colors and shapes that appeal to her—adding that she took customer feedback into account as well. The crowdsourced advice resulted in button-down options “for the boob ladies,” longer and shorter lengths, and separates, so you could represent the cult of Batsheva without giving up jeans.These impossibly pretty, delicate dresses could also seem impossibly irrelevant in “times like these,” when fashion is trying to suss out ways to represent the complexity of womanhood through clothing. Hay’s work, with its modesty, frill, and super-saccharine femininity, can be read as regressive. So how to classify or categorize these pieces, which are, in fact, beloved by New York’s most fiercely intellectual and politically minded women? It’s about the freedom to choose and the freedom to reclaim notions of girlishness and prettiness to represent strength. You have to ask yourself when wearing a Batsheva dress, “Do I dare to wear a ruffle?” In the age of Everlane, a ruffle is practically revolutionary. Lots of women are rising to the cause.
15 February 2018