Katie Eary (Q4908)
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Katie Eary is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Katie Eary |
Katie Eary is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Katie Eary’s Spring collection featured only collaborations. “That’s the future,” she said. Each brand partner subsequently represented a throwback to pre-millennial British street fashion: Boy London and Spliffy. Thrown together, everything that crashed the catwalk was pretty over-the-top. But the total overload was purposeful:Earysaid that she is sick of the academism and seriousness with which streetwear is now treated in fashion. Fair enough. But, then again, this designer has never really shied away from the unserious.Eary’s show notes describe a space between London’s one-time hipster haunt Camden Market andThe Fifth Element, the futuristic, fabulously costumed sci-fi flick from 1997 starring an orange-maned Milla Jovovich. The women on Eary’s runway wore strappy swimwear similar to Jovovich’s character’s (there was also a cool shredded skirt in subtly printed denim). Men saw more variety; there were MA-1 jackets (the best was olive hued and had a neon-green plexiBoypin on it), neoprene hoodies, and appealing parkas, with no shortage of electro-bright prints, concentrated especially with butterflies and beetles. The hyper-saturation and the all-over-the-place-ness won’t really land fans in a mass sense; it will however satisfy Eary lovers, as well as those of Boy London (of which there are many), and nostalgists for Spliffy.
12 June 2017
Before her Fall 2017 show this morning, Katie Eary stood backstage in a ragged Kanye West “Yeezy” tee, which she had DIY-ed with heart-shaped nipple tassels. It was awesome. Was it a preview of her upcoming runway? Well… kind of.Eary—whose contemporary-category clothing is known for its eye-grabbing graphics and, in her words, “garish” taste—anchored this collection in 1960s and 1970s-era Soho, London. “It’s all about Paul Raymond,” she said, name-checking the then strip club owner, publisher, and property mogul. (Raymond was ostensibly the O.G. kingpin of London’s sex scene and industry.) “It was a time when sex was more… carry-on, like cheeky and fun, rather than in the '80s when it got more wrong, more pornographic.” The designer succeeded in channeling the camp parlor decadence of her chosen era. But the timeframe served as a catch-22—these clothes looked a bit dated upon arrival (for example, deep-V vests with floating marabou feathers), and they left one wanting to see a more modern spin, perhaps, as her own outfit suggested, as a “models upstairs”-inflected degradation of fashion’s current merch craze.That being said, there were highlights in this boudoir—Daisy Lowe, in Eary’s next women’s collection shown concurrently, returned to the catwalk. She opened the show in a silken, clinging dress, smattered with lascivious lizards. For the guys, outerwear shone through the sweat and the dust—namely an ashen shearling coat and a leather-and-shearling trench in “tarry” tobacco. A bathrobe, also in silk and rendered in Pucci-esque whirls, was paired with a bare chest and a gold chain. That struck a pleasurable perverted chord, as “Hot Pants” by Alan Parker and Alan Hawkshaw piped through the room.
8 January 2017
Before her Fall 2017 show this morning,Katie Earystood backstage in a ragged Kanye West “Yeezy” tee, which she had DIY-ed with heart-shaped nipple tassels. It was awesome. Was it a preview of her upcoming runway? Well… kind of.Eary—whose contemporary-category clothing is known for its eye-grabbing graphics and, in her words, “garish” taste—anchored this collection in 1960s and 1970s-era Soho, London. “It’s all about Paul Raymond,” she said, name-checking the then strip club owner, publisher, and property mogul. (Raymond was ostensibly the O.G. kingpin of London’s post-war sex scene and industry.) “It was a time when sex was more… carry-on, like cheeky and fun, rather than in the '80s when it got more wrong, more pornographic.”The designer succeeded in channeling the camp parlor decadence of her chosen era. But the timeframe served as a catch-22—these clothes looked a bit dated upon arrival (for example, deep-V vests with floating marabou feathers), and they left one wanting to see a more modern spin, perhaps, as her own outfit suggested, as a “models upstairs”-inflected degradation of fashion’s current merch craze.That being said, there were highlights in this boudoir—Daisy Lowe, in Eary’s next women’s collection shown concurrently, returned to the catwalk. She opened the show in a silken, clinging dress, smattered with lascivious lizards. For the guys, outerwear shone through the sweat and the dust—namely an ashen shearling coat and a leather-and-shearling trench in “tarry” tobacco. A bathrobe, also in silk and rendered in Pucci-esque whirls, was paired with a bare chest and a gold chain. That struck a pleasurable perverted chord, as “Hot Pants” by Alan Parker and Alan Hawkshaw piped through the room.
7 January 2017
Bad taste is a tough sell in fashion, because generally people want to buy good taste. Even if the taste they think is good is actually bad. It’s a game of perception, and it’s entirely subjective.There will surely be takers for the tasteKatie Earyoffered for Spring 2017: They didn’t vary too much from the clothes she offers season in and out. Here, she knowingly referenced what she dubbed “working-class, market town weekend finery,” a stylistic strain that on paper sounds quintessentially British but, in person, can be recognized the world over. In Italy, it’s what the flashy guys, dubbedragazzi, are wearing; in the U.K., we often use the termchav.Eary’s men wore their hair heavily greased (the pomade, in a few instances, was ladled on so thick it was more readily visible than the actual hair), their limp shirts wide open, and their faces subtly, cosmetically contoured, conforming precisely to stereotype.The result was eye-catching. Eary plastered her silks with hammerhead sharks and barracudas in garish colors, with stars and ’70s-style blocking, and topped one with a swaggering but sweltering Mongolian lamb–trimmed coat that seemed seasonally unsuitable. A clutch of female models did Elvira Hancock duty in slip dresses and swimsuits.You weren’t sure if the intention was to champion or caricature these working-class 21st-century stock characters. Either way, the collection felt like it missed on the fundamental level of a fashion show, which is to produce desirable clothing that connects with the aesthetic conversation of the current moment. But maybe it just wasn’t to my taste.
13 June 2016
How strange that the passing of David Bowie should come as his aesthetic ghost is already haunting the Fall 2016 men’s runways.Katie Eary’s show, for instance, bore his unmistakable imprimatur—jiggy, Ziggy graphic pattern; flowing silk; and that newly coined fashionable notion of gender fluidity that’s thus far come bound up in the simple notion of a man wearing a woman’s blouse. Which, in itself, is pretty Bowie.Eary remarked that she was inspired by an Alec Lindsell documentary,The Sacred Triangle, exploring the creative exchange between Bowie, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop. Indeed, part of the reason Bowie dubbed his Spiders From Mars frontman “Ziggy” was because it sounded a bit like Iggy.The slipstreaming and swapping of references, genres, and indeed garments was Eary’s big idea for Fall. She threw a few female models into the mix too, although with teased beehives, dolly bird eyeliner, and marabou-puffed mules, their gender wasn’t terribly fluid. Neither was their teetering gait. Regardless of the androgyny of the attire of Ziggy or Iggy, I’m fairly sure neither would dare don those mules, for simple health and safety reasons rather than anything more ideological.Would they wear the rest? Possibly. Eary had done her homework—or had at least watched a few dozen YouTube videos to get the superficial style of the trio of stars down pat. Jeans came in metallic leather that glistened like Warhol's Factory walls; silk billowed in caftans printed with koi carp, possibly a reference to Mr. Fish, the London designer whose peculiar clothes were worn by the likes of Mick Jagger and, indeed, Bowie. They also had a bit of the Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell about them—a big compliment. Maybe too big, but still, credit’s due.Less successful were high-zipped retro sporty tops in panne velvet—a fabric of questionable practicality for winter and even more doubtful taste that has been popping up all over the place at London’s men’s shows. Here, it ended up looking like Eary had cut a few outfits, Von Trapp–style, from old curtains. Not sure Bowie would ever wear that.
11 January 2016
A My Little Pony look-alike—only with a huge, ahem, "appendage"—graced the shirts and shorts at Katie Eary's Spring presentation. We know what effect the vernal season can have on people's libido, and Eary seemed all clued in about it. "It's basically 1950s teenager," the designer said after the show, name-dropping Elvis Presley and his youthful innocence. "But his sexuality was so threatening to people," Eary continued, and it was this sexual undercurrent beneath the polished and wholesome surface that she was looking to explore. The color scheme was in itself seductive, with ombré effects of turquoise blending into pea green. Other times, the neon signs of the Las Vegas Strip were evoked on shirts with stark, printed detailing. Boxer shorts peeked out from underneath pants, another take on teenage clothing rebellion.Eary has a forthcoming design line with Ikea and it's easy to see why her sense of humor and subversiveness could appeal as interior design. As a fashion designer, her role is not as evident. You sometimes find yourself asking if this is really a collection of prints rather than clothes. She is most successful when acting as a kind of young, East London send-up of Richard James, the Savile Row tailor with a similar genius feel for color. But this time you got the joke and then thought: Now what? A pony with a giant schlong is fine and dandy, but when repeated over and over, the joke gets a little old (a certain "one trick" metaphor comes to mind). The trompe l'oeil chunky knit print on fine-gauge knitwear just fell a bit flat in comparison, and you ended up wanting more. Because the shirts, loose and billowing, were gorgeous, as were the shorts, which were cut in a way that made you feel embarrassed for looking. Yes, they pleased the libido.
15 June 2015
"I'm obsessed with modern artists like Jeff Koons, KAWS, and Jennifer Saville: You either love them or hate them, and it's the same way with me," said Katie Eary after showing her Fall collection. But what could Saville's grotesque paintings and interest in bodily imperfections have in common with Koons' shiny coldness or KAWS' cartoon-like world?Well, you didn't have to look farther than the prints, which showed metallic body parts (brains and rib cages, to be precise) and teeth. Eary explained that they had all been made in the same 3-D computer program that Koons himself uses. Tube knitted brains—yes, really—were fastened onto sweaters or made into skullcaps (a madcap idea if ever there was one), while stitches on jeans hinted at surgical scars.Eary said that she had spent considerable time doing fabric research to find the right kind of scar color. She had also found an old RAF seamstress to make authentic-looking coats—but the Eary versions naturally came in nuances of bright orange or teal and were asymmetrically constructed, which gave a dual impression of both mac and trench. In fact the show notes mentioned bipolarity, and it was further accentuated by the designer's own two-colored hair. There was also a slight lack of cohesion to this collection: Hats and gloves trimmed with fox fur seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the clothes, for example. But you got a feeling that this was the designer's modus operandi, and that you either had to take it or leave it. Eary doesn't seem like a woman interested in compromise.Some people might object to brains or rib cages as a motif on clothes, but to them there's only one thing to say: Look up Elsa Schiaparelli's "Tears" dress from 1938, or better still, the skeleton dress with visible rib cage she did the same year. Eary's clothes this season definitely had pedigree. When asked if she was ever scared that the clothes might come across as disgusting, Eary quickly retorted, "I'm never afraid." And there was really nothing eerie (geddit?) about these clothes. Instead it was all pop fun.
12 January 2015
There were two ways to look at Katie Eary's Dallas Rodeo collection for Spring. Either you took it for what it was—a fun romp with a bunch of cowboy shirts and seventies psychedelia—or you got annoyed that that'sallit was: a group of cool-looking guys in denim and sunset-colored tops.Eary's approach to her clothes is straightforward, perhaps too much so. Backstage after the show, she recalled how she and her boyfriend would get up early to catch the latest episodes ofBreaking Bad,and she became obsessed with the thought of who the new cowboy is. Then she watchedDallas Buyers Club,and that's how the vintage-y seventies vibe came in. "I'm just a bit magpie-esque," Eary declared. Jeans had a faded and worn look but were kept skinny rather than flared. They made a pleasing base for the designer's vivid tops, where cacti, fish bones, and peace signs competed for attention. The allure of Eary's designs rests with her use of color, which was delicious—pink, purple, and orange nuances were reflected in the multicolored mirror lenses of the models' aviator shades.So who is the new cowboy? Well, he's a guy who likes his fringed Western jacket fused with the more modern biker jacket, and he has a fondness for tight, psychedelic turtlenecks worn under his rodeo-worthy shirts. It was in these less cowboy-ish moments that Eary's vision of the modern rancher shone through. Unfortunately it was a brief glimpse, and one was left longing for something a bit more developed and even wicked. In fact, one of the delights of Eary's previous collections has been their baroque wackiness. This outing, in comparison, just felt a bit more Milan than London.
16 June 2014
From a distance, this Katie Eary collection looked awfully frothy: whorls of red and pink, lots of flounced, diaphanous silk. Also, it was basically just a swimwear collection. But Eary had dark things on her mind—namely, the Irvine Welsh novelMaribou Stork Nightmares. Without going too deep into the story, which is apparently pretty vicious, suffice to say that what Eary plumbed from it was a theme of woman-as-fantasy-sex-object. And so there was an interesting interplay between the ultra-sexy swimwear, like a maillot with sheer inserts and a fretted back, and the cloudy cover-up pieces, like a baby-doll-style top or capelet with a pussy-bow tie. The latter looks gave the collection, limited as it was, an ethereal, miragelike quality, helped along by the fact that Eary was so emphatic in the use of her print. Aside from the suits, for which Eary has an uncommon touch, the strongest piece here was a silk V-neck knit with bell sleeves; it was proposed as another poolside cover-up, but obviously could be put to everyday use. The sweater had a quality of true, insouciant, jet-set luxe, and it made you sorry there werent more versatile looks like it.
15 October 2013
Given that this was only the second womenswear collection from Katie Eary, it was no surprise to find her still honing her point of view. That said, she did make some headway this season. The designer seems to have located a Katie Eary-shaped hole in the market and filled it with skintight denim corset-laced with rubber tubing, iridescent button-downs with balloon sleeves, and neoprene sweatshirts—all of them produced in florid floral prints. Minimalist, no. But that's all to the good. Eary's take on sex and decadence felt distinctive and new—the rubber tubing was a witty touch, and the fact that her primary material was denim made the collection feel unexpectedly grounded. It's not unreasonable to imagine a nervy girl pulling on Eary's tube-sided skinny jeans, throwing on a T-shirt and a baseball cap, and heading out for the night. (Indeed, it's not insane to imagine that girl being Rihanna.) Eary has found a niche; now she just needs to work on giving her collections more scope and dimension.
11 March 2013
Katie Eary is no shrinking violet. Nor does she design for the faint of heart: Since launching her menswear line in 2009, she's clad her boys in everything from motocross jackets the color of radioactive goo to monster fur jackets and crocodile top hats fit for a circus ringleader in icy, icy hell. Eary has made it her practice to send a few women's looks out at her men's shows, and her clothes have been worn by the likes of Rihanna and Lady Gaga, so it's not surprising that she's decided to launch a womenswear range. The surprise is that her first collection is so (relatively) tame.The operative word, of course, is that parenthetical "relative." Eary's baroque, blown-out tigerfish prints, repeated from the men's collection, weren't exactly sedate. Her swimwear was barely-there and her skirts were micro-short, and what with her emphasis on gold and ultra-luxe materials overall, the general impression was flash. There's a niche for that, and Eary will make a packet if she aims to fill it. But this season, at least, she lost her nerve when it came to her silhouettes. Eary herself admitted that she was being tentative; when she presented the womenswear by appointment, she described her process as "figuring out her girl." That's fair enough, and Eary will find plenty of fans for her refined motorcycle jackets, executed in top-of-the-line ponyhair. She also has a real knack for making swimwear that's insanely sexy yet somehow not crass. But she should heed the fact that womenswear has a higher bar for shock than menswear does, and you don't cross it by applying eye-searing prints to Balenciaga-inspired bonded sweatshirts and sculpted shorts. The fashion scene doesn't need another young designer worshipping at the altar of Ghesquière. But it could use a next Cavalli.
10 October 2012