Gary Graham (Q4119)
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Gary Graham is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Gary Graham |
Gary Graham is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Gary Graham’s vision for his brand is kaleidoscopic. The way he manifests his clothing is eccentric and multidimensional, mixing and matching and stitching together visual references ranging from 17th-century home furnishing prints to Byzantine metalwork. Last season he showed a film he made starring Helena Bonham Carter wearing his Fall 2017 collection and playing the deceased owner of a Gothic Revival home in Rhode Island.Rich imagery is at the core of Graham’s label, but for Spring the designer focussed on a different one of the five senses: His collection was largely informed by the sound artist Maryanne Amacher. (The writing of film director Derek Jarman and various ideas of analog versus digital were also sources of inspiration.) Graham once again created a film to showcase his new wares, this time based around a sound artist creating her work.Despite Graham’s passion in describing this new inspiration during the preview (he had even made a pilgrimage to theGrey Gardens-esque home Amacher once lived in), it was difficult to identify some of his talking points in the actual clothes. Despite this, they were certainly beautiful to see and feel, especially the layered, goddess-like slip dresses and the long-sleeved jersey tops with patchwork floral prints. The tank tops with Victorian necklines were also interesting, as were the pocketed skirt and dress with mattress ticking, which were made in the oldest ticking mill in America.There was much to take in and plenty of wearable pieces in a collection with fairly esoteric references attached. But the wonderful thing about Graham’s clothes is that the garments always make you think, see, learn, hear, and visualize something out of the ordinary.
6 September 2017
In another life, Gary Graham might have been a librarian or an archivist. When designing his eclectic garments, he feeds off of deep dives into historical texts that range in subject matter from colonialism to Cleopatra. After referencing the Dutch East India Trading Company last season, Graham has focused his new collection on an 1870s Gothic Revival mansion located in Warwick, Rhode Island. The designer was taken with the old landmarked homes he encountered on a tour of the area led by his assistant’s sister, a member of the state’s historical society, and that’s where his research began. Graham conducted in-depth interviews with the living descendants of the mansion’s original owner Elizabeth Slater, compiling information about tiny details like where the scarab print in the billiard room was sourced.The exquisite motifs and old-world textiles found in the house became the foundation of his Fall lineup. He borrowed elements from the Egyptian revival room (the oldest in the country, in fact) and wove patterns taken from picture frames and door hinges into pieces like a gauzy white top with black embroidery and a mesmerizing patchwork coat made with leather and jacquard. Graham also used the interiors as a starting point for Byzantium-inspired patina metal beading, the most beautiful examples of which were featured on a pretty shrunken vest and a sleeveless, low V-neck dress. Aside from the embellished pieces, the designer was savvy to offer up an array of wearable items like boyish cropped pants, distressed army jackets, jersey tops with lace woven onto the sleeves, and tunics woven with alpaca and monofilament for a hint of sheer.In wanting to tell the full story of the home and its matriarch, the designer went so far as to recruit Helena Bonham Carter for a one-off, in-studio photo shoot. He dressed her as the lady of the manor Elizabeth Slater in a dusty-rose-color gown decorated with beaded black lace, the final image of which was hung on his mood board. There’s a lot going on in Graham’s historically based world, sometimes so much that it might make the average customer’s head spin. But he gets away with it, as he did this season, because the clothes have as much unique handiwork as they do compelling backstory.
8 February 2017
Last season,Gary Grahamcreated for each of his tarot-like female archetypes a rich personal history; for Spring, Parker Posey’s Magician played a role in the latest galaxy to emerge from the designer’s lush universe. Envisioning her as a child of colonialism, Graham also name-checked musician Nick Drake, whose father was employed in Burma by a trading company. And perhaps chiefly, Graham referred to the Dutch East India Trading Company, whose massive business in the Spice Islands and the winds of trade resulted in plenty of aesthetic cross-pollination. All of which, for Graham, ultimately raised the question: How do you wear your past?That could easily be a mantra for all of his clothes, steeped as they are in research and centuries of far-flung visual references. And here was a heady mix indeed; prints were interpreted at various scales and across fabrications, from featherweight silks to jersey and cotton. Some patterns looked as though they’d been plucked straight from the cargo of a ship in the port of Jakarta in the 1600s, while a ticking-stripe jacket, with its nipped waist, felt undeniably Victorian in its reference, ditto a series of pieces decked out in stunning jet beading. Graham called one jacquard out as Peruvian.Hewn together from all manner of bewitching, intercontinental flotsam and jetsam, leather, lace, linen, embroidered trims, and chiffon (the first two met in a particularly gorgeous buttery leather apron, arguably the styling piece you never knew your wardrobe needed until now), the results were otherworldly and undeniably very lovely. Still, perhaps the coolest piece of the whole lot was one of the most unexpected for Graham: His mind set alight by the surf movieView From a Blue Moon, he’d whipped up board shorts in two Victorian florals—stellar on every level.
8 September 2016
Who is theGary Grahamwoman? Jamie Bochert. Julia Roberts. Karen O. Helena Bonham Carter. The designer counts among his fans a passel of singular women, all commanding in their own ways. For Fall he tapped seven of his muses and friends to serve as models, each channeling an archetype that nodded to their real-life personality: Kara Walker as the General, Gina Gershon as the Clairvoyant, Parker Posey as the Magician, artist Alexandra Marzella as the Poet. Beyond just creating characters, Graham conjured up an entire, fantastical universe for them, richly furnished with backstories and all manner of antiques. He even went so far as to upholster a mahogany chair in one of Fall’s key textiles for the shoot.There’s an intoxicating profusion to Graham’s world; Stopping by his Tribeca store today, a trip to the back room led one down a rabbit hole where past styles of his own commingled with vintage garments like an old Ziegfeld Follies number. Still, the most compelling part of the designer’s archivist tendencies is the way in which he pieces it all together. In places it’s literal: Fall’s patchworked wrap vest was conjured up from interiors fabrics, jacquards, and shearling. Elsewhere it’s a sensibility, the idea of displacement being a perennial one in Graham’s work. Here a reworked Argentinean gaucho was shown alongside a gorgeous jacquard after a Portuguese tapestry; one print lifted from an 18th-century priest’s stole hung just a rack away from a jacket that Graham talked about in reference to the “wickedest man in the world,” British occultist Aleister Crowley. Standouts, of course, included some of the designer’s most lavish propositions. An almost Havisham-worthy gown (seen on Posey), in tiers of shaggy alpaca fringe and Battenburg lace, and Sunrise Ruffalo’s tapestry dress, scattered in metal sequins, were showstoppers. But Graham’s brand of basics is also a wholly unique one. To wit: a baby alpaca tee, or a leather slipdress trimmed in shaggy goat hair. The gang of Graham girls will gain some new members in the months to come: Barney’s New York picked up the Spring collection, which will be on the racks any day now.
12 February 2016
Displacement as a positive force? It’s a theme that, in one way or another, has often coursed through __Gary Graham’__s clothes. His keenly researched collections contain multitudes, with enough references to make an art history major’s head spin. A brief shopping list of a few of his aesthetic touchstones for this season: the wordasunder, Buddhist vestments, Iranian carpets, historical mourning garb, seminal experimental filmmaker Jack Smith, and Queen Elizabeth I.Generally speaking, Graham weaves together such disparate ideas with ease. Despite his period fodder, the results are unplaceable in time and geography. Take silk dresses, in an ornate print borrowed from the aforementioned Iranian rugs, or a trapeze maxi inspired by a traditional Turkish wedding dress. Paneled in black and shimmering gold, it was easy to imagine on some cool young thing at one of the city’s artier events. His message got perhaps a bit muddled in a mixed-media top that married Victorian mutton-chop sleeves, tapestry, and ticking stripes. More winning were dresses in perfectly polished shapes but with plenty of grungy appeal, splattered with bleach till they reached an uncanny shade of goldenrod. Transformation of another kind was afoot in a grouping of items that riffed on the idea of remnants. Graham had lately been reading Chloé Griffin’s oral history of Cookie Mueller, and he tapped into the book’s descriptions of a thrift store in Mueller’s native Baltimore. The resulting pieces came edged in all manner of metallic sundries.Particularly savvy was Graham’s decision to build out his offering of pieces that boast a broad appeal but make more of a statement than your pure basics. A pair of ethereal blouses, a poet number with full sleeves, and a sleeveless top with a slashed, sheer high neckline both fit the bill, as did his supple Peruvian knits in a graphic black-and-white pattern inspired by tile work. Graham’s lookbook styling may have an editorial loftiness to it, but there was a surprising amount of real-world potential to the majority of these clothes.
9 September 2015
Gary Graham's evident love of aesthetic archaeology is nothing if not compelling. Season after season he flouts the modish, instead plumbing libraries or museum archives. Fall's genesis came from Salem's Peabody Essex Museum, where Graham and the composer-performer Meredith Monk recently collaborated on an installation. Their fodder included a throne from Zanzibar and the Indian Vizagapatam chair, both ornate and singular enough to be logical fixations for Graham. Add to those Captain Cook's book of traditional barkcloths and a New England embroidery sampler and you're on the way to partially appreciating the scope of the designer's latest outing.Here was a Silk Road, East-meets-West mishmash of continents and centuries: a wonderful maxi dress in a tapestry-inspired, chenille-wool jacquard; plummy velvet separates; a cream coat with fraying edges and rich floral embroidery for a touch of modern-day Miss Havisham. All that extravagance was tempered by the spruce, period-inspired tailoring and crisp shirting that are hallmarks of Graham's brand.Less compelling were a few of the prints, like silks patterned after that aforementioned throne, or the African mask design repeating across organza. The designer's luxe fabrications and unabashed romanticism shone through less there. Graham is not the man you go to for a simple silk button-down. Nope, chances are what you want from him is the Dickensian frock coat or the fox-fur capelet tricked out with big gold zippers—clothes that inspire a cultish following from women who aren't afraid to wear their eccentricities. And on those, he delivered.
10 February 2015
While Gary Graham's romantic collections can occasionally seem frozen in the historic past, this season felt firmly rooted in the here and now. Instead of hitting the library stacks for inspiration, as he often does, the designer turned his attention toward the skies. "It was important for us to get out of the studio," Graham said while pointing to his Spring '15 lookbook images, which were shot outside of a gritty strip mall in Westchester. Referencing Chinese dragon kites, Graham created his own version of the traditional toy, and snapped it soaring over a beach in the Rockaways. Those photographs brought about the lineup's inky block print, which he featured on graphic blouses and wrap dresses.Graham continued to evoke kite construction by attaching square draped panels of fabric to gauzy maxi numbers that fluttered in the breeze. These softer looks were toughened up with the addition of tweedy schoolboy blazers or cocoon-shaped leather biker jackets that underscored the collection's punky edge. "I was going forAnne of Green Gablesmeets Joy Division," Graham explained. Furthering the rebellious streak here were rusted safety pin accents, clever riffs on band T-shirts, and a cool slouchy pair of black trousers that Graham referred to as his "Bukowski" pants.
3 September 2014
Gary Graham has a distinct viewpoint that is decidedly sepia-tinted. Instead of chasing after current trends, the designer operates according to his own codes, and continues to draw inspiration from history. His clothes often have a modern heirloom quality—as though you might find them in an upscale antique store or swank Victorian-themed bar. This season, Graham spent hours delving into the textile archives at the Met, and came away thinking about what he called "fragments of the Middle East." The saturated prints found here on silk tops and slim leggings nodded to ancient Turkish rugs and Byzantine tapestries. Those patterned pieces were layered with sequined dresses and felted jacquard wraps. "Everything is kind of oversized and drapey," said Graham, pointing out a canvas twill coat with an exaggerated cocoon shape, which could also be worn upside down (as it was styled here) for an eclectic effect. Graham's references aren't always so esoteric. Old snapshots of Keith Richards exiting the Stones' private jet gave rise to the collection's standout piece: a curly lamb jacket with a shellacked leather finish that had a worn-in look and far-reaching appeal.
3 February 2014
Gary Graham is known for uniquely romantic designs that, more often than not, successfully render his medieval and Victorian fashion influences modern. This season, Graham found himself "a little obsessed with Willa Cather andMy Antonia," and envisioned a woman who is a bit more ladylike than usual. "She's done but undone all at once," he said at a preview in his Tribeca store. The new lineup included several of the designer's signature pieces, including vintage-y apron dresses, petticoats, slips, and delicate nylon mesh underpinnings embellished with jet beading—all of which have endless layering possibilities. Graham mixed those standbys (which he also reinterprets for his lower-priced Anagram line) with standout items such as a cropped puff-sleeve jacket featuring a digital damask print, as well as a cool shrunken biker patchworked with pieces of that same tapestry fabric. Elsewhere, an Empire-waist dress with a woven leather bodice and satin linen skirt also nicely balanced the opposing forces of old and new, and tough and feminine, in play here.
3 September 2013
Gary Graham's Fall collection had a distinct medieval tenor, which dovetailed with the designer's perennially romantic point of view. At a preview in his Tribeca store/studio space, Graham conjured up images of a woodland queen wearing gold-flecked tapestry jacquard skirts, wispy silk "hatch plaid" shirts, and delicate knits. Per usual, there was an emphasis on liberal layering here, and the sheer puff-sleeve T-shirts worn under many of the looks added a Renaissance touch. Outerwear standouts, including utilitarian hunting jackets and a nipped-in coatdress with a corset-like leather bodice, toughened up the equation a bit. Overall, Graham succeeded at modernizing his references to the Middle Ages, but there is always something detached and otherworldly about his clothing. "I'm always focused on the idea of isolation and how that has to do with fashion," Graham said. It's nice to see someone who listens to his own voice and goes with his gut instead of the current trends.
14 February 2013
Gary Graham is a font of esoteric knowledge. He designs for women who appreciate his cerebral reference points, or maybe just have a taste for romantic clothes with antique appeal. "She's creative and is the kind of girl who arrives to the party after everyone else leaves," Graham said of his customer at an appointment in his Tribeca store. His new collection was inspired by Jean Genet's novelOur Lady of the Flowersand evokes the moodiness of the book's Montmartre cemetery setting, though in a delicate, spring-appropriate way. Graham explained, "I like the idea of taking heavy textiles and making them light." So he turned rich French tapestries and jacquards into digital prints on wispy silk and organza, then whipped them up into convertible tie-back dresses and on-trend board shorts. Graham is a sucker for layering and often piled these drape-y pieces with chiffon sweaters and long gabardine jackets that were, as he put it, "almost clergylike."Graham's is a specific—and often eccentric—vision, but one that is increasingly in demand, it appears. Last season, he launched a new, lower-priced line named Anagram to reach a wider audience.
3 September 2012
Gary Graham is the kind of guy who would probably make a killing on Jeopardy. A history buff and autodidact, his mood board each season is chock-full of obscure references. For Fall, he was inspired by the Manchester International Theater Festival he attended in July, ancient Iranian wrestling tunics, and WWI naval "dazzle" camouflage. That's quite the combination, but it fit Graham's magpie aesthetic, which emphasizes convertibility and ample layering.At a preview in Graham's downtown Manhattan store, he piled up a vintage quilt-print dress with fine-gauge sweaters and a deconstructed army vest, then completed the look with a Dickensian wool topper. Styled in a more realistic, pared-down manner, the pieces here would still stand out—particularly the outerwear. The burnished cardinal fingertip-length coat evoked, as the designer put it, a sense of "leftover royalty," while a safety orange padded vest with a split-zip hood added a refreshing touch of sportiness. Graham's clothes aren't for everyone, but aspiring female dandies ought to fancy his unique brand of awkward elegance.
5 February 2012
For Gary Graham, Spring is about slipdresses and their endless layering possibilities. He thinks of these slips (the nineties staple is currently having a revival) as "shells of dresses, all that's left." Long, sheer ones were styled here under skirts that, according to Graham, were designed to resemble fitted, embroidered pillowcases with zippered slits at the sides.There was a definite whimsy to the collection—many of the pieces looked like ones you might find at a favorite musty vintage store. Case in point: a flouncy, trapeze car coat that appeared tea-stained. More often than not, Graham wielded this kind of quirk in a modern way, topping a lingerie-inspired dress with a sharp herringbone blazer, or integrating trendy neon hues into sprayed-on floral and "antique sheet music" prints. The result: This lineup felt more accessible than seasons past.
5 September 2011
"I could have gotten really serious with it, but I wanted this to be playful," Gary Graham said at Wednesday night's presentation in his Tribeca studio and boutique. Known for his cerebral backstories and research-heavy inspirations, Graham's work has always had a certain sobriety. It was a welcome change, then, to find a youthful frivolity in the styling of his latest collection and a definite lightness to the clothes. Done up in jet-black Joan Jett mullets and adorned with safety-pin necklaces, primary-colored Converse, and slouchy sport socks, Graham's models were bound for St. Mark's Place circa 1982, ready to raid the nearest record store.Despite the lightened-up tone, this collection was as rich with fieldwork as past outings. Graham worked a classic mythology vibe, referencing Joseph Campbell'sThe Hero with a Thousand Facesand calling upon archetypal figures like the shepherd and the orphan to inflect his work. Sounds heavy, but the shepherd influence looked compelling in a long alpaca knit vest and fetching in a fitted brown and maroon blanket dress worn over a pair of indigo batik-print leggings. That batik print was one of the strongest in a collection full of them, all thrown together and layered willy-nilly. Like much of what was on display here, that mix felt fresh.
8 February 2011
Gary Graham has an extensive trove of vintage clothes he mines for inspiration, and this season a pair of delicate, finely wrought jackets from perhaps a hundred years ago were it. But while Graham's designs always hew to the ethos of an earlier era, he's still keenly aware of what his customer wants to wear in the here and now.For Spring, what she wants is a little more polish. Graham envisioned a city girl who'd fled for greener pastures, literally, and had to adjust her urban wardrobe accordingly. An exquisitely hand-beaded bolero looked like it had been sheared off at the bottom, and an embroidered dress—one of the strongest looks—was inspired by a chair he found abandoned in the woods. On the original needlepoint cushion, the pattern was still visible but the forest's sticks and leaves had worked their way into the frame. On the sheer organza dress, an abstract pine-needle print worked its way into dense floral embroidery that climbed up the bodice.What constitutesmorepolish, though, is relative. Graham likes to play with volume through layering, and the slips and leggings worn under some skirts gave the impression—intentionally? unintentionally?—that the skirts' linings were slowly coming undone. Decidedly substantial was Graham's first true shoe collection. Wedged and heeled ankle boots in dark olive, red, and tan grounded the dreamy, old-soul clothes. "It's precious," the designer said a few days before his presentation, "but not precious at all."
10 September 2010
"I love things that look like they were once something else," Gary Graham said a few days before his show. And so Fall had a well-worn and repurposed look; even the shoes, cloven-hoof heels (designed to give the models maximum height during a stage-less presentation), were assembled from bits of flotsam and jetsam lying about in the studio.The needlepoint tapestry on one sharp Victorian-ish coat looked like a remnant of an old couch—a good thing. Even better was a beat-up and cropped leather cape with a surprisingly sweet, soft shape, worn over a silk jersey top and a miniskirt. In addition to repurposing, Graham likes multipurposing: What was termed a "skirt top" in the liner notes turned out to be a flimsy georgette piece that could be worn as a dress, a shirt, or a skirt. Many of the looks were expertly layered with skirts and dresses peeking out below alpaca Indian cloth cardigans or boiled-wool coats. Amid all the harder fabrics and the raw tailoring, a beaded black tulle dress struck a poignant note of delicacy.
12 February 2010
Think you're having a busy week? Fashion Fund finalist Gary Graham shot his lookbook on Friday. On Thursday he opened his new Tribeca flagship for Fashion's Night Out. (Theo Kogan performed.) And the day before that he was photographed forVoguewith Sasha Pivovarova. "To see your favorite model in your clothes is a dream come true," he said at the end of the hectic week, still walking on air.Despite the seeming suddenness of his success, Graham has actually been in business for almost ten years, and the collection had a maturity and quiet confidence that can only come from experience. Graham has, obviously, found his voice by now, but he remains excited and challenged by his craft. This season he expanded his universe by adding a frisson of S-E-X to his rustic (by way of Disfarmer and Walker Evans) leanings. "I love anything Victorian—petticoats, corsets, that covered-up feeling," he said. "But I'm trying to be less literal and more relaxed about the details, so I can bring them to a new customer." Well, there should be plenty of those. And—with both Nancy Spungen and Lillian Gish on his inspiration board—they'll be a diverse lot, too.A grunge-y distressed-flannel print and some "grandpa" suits with off-kilter waistlines and outsize proportions (described by Graham as having a BukowskiBarflyedge) added a tomboy counterpoint to the romantic embroidered and beaded pieces, some of which were inspired by old sheets and bedspreads. But nothing wastoopretty. Graham's work always has a Miss Havisham quality to it—as evidenced here by shredded details, an eighteenth-century floral fabric "rubbed out" with bleach, and a bustier that looked like it had been torn off a decaying gown. Beautiful rot, indeed.
10 September 2009
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8 February 2002