Lorod (Q5064)
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Lorod is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Lorod |
Lorod is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
On a perfect sun-drenched June afternoon, designer Lauren Rodriguez brought her latest for Lorod to the New York Marble Cemetery, a lovely little green space tucked down a secret alley in the East Village. It was a clever choice, given the two-year-old label’s own status as a hidden gem in New York, though that designation won’t last long. Over the course of two hours, a slew of downtown creatives came to recline on raw-edged denim blankets with bottles of Pacífico beer and treats from a sumptuous summer buffet—ice blocks piled with split coconuts and sugar-crusted cubes of Castipan guava paste, and plastic bags filled with slices of ripe papaya and mango with the requisite chili salt on the side. It was a picture-perfect affair, dedicated to Rodriguez’s Mexican-American background.Those familial roots shaped the Lorod story this season. “My dad was a migrant worker in California, and growing up he was one out of 13 kids,” Rodriguez explained. On a recent trip home, she found herself digging through old family photos and fell in love with her aunts’ and uncles’ ’70s and ’80s Chicano style. “It’s such an underrepresented world, in fashion especially. It’s close to home and I wanted to dive into that world a little bit.” Hence the mangos with chili and the diverse cast of models with hair and makeup that nodded to Latinx beauty codes—personal details that helped solidify the label’s identity.Rodriguez also pulled from the Brazilian painter Amadeo Lorenzato and blended his colorful work with Robert Rauschenberg’s starched textile sculptures and a photograph of a woman in winter, pulling frozen clothes off a line. (That directly inspired the starched and pressed garments that hung from four clotheslines, set up in the park for the show.) As always, she collaged these artistic references to reinterpret American classics with elements of craft. Yet Rodriguez was keen to note how Lorod has pushed past its early reputation for beautiful basics. “I started wanting to make the perfect jean, the perfect shirt, but everyone wanted the more kitschy image pieces from us,” she said, pointing to the quirky cut-out turtlenecks and abstract puzzle-like prints on the rack. “People like coming to us for the more novel, fun things, which is exciting for us because we get to have more fun designing.
”Of course, it comes down to desirable clothes, and Lorod had plenty of them: the featherweight gingham tube top, the faded blue-and-yellow knit with trailing red string, the stiff black carpenter jean, the calf-length skirt suit with white whip stitching, and the spiral-cut yellowed-white shirtdress hemmed with baby blue thread. All loose, easy, yet impeccably put together—the Lorod way.
5 June 2019
Functionalandfunrarely appear in the same sentence, especially one pertaining to fashion. But in her latest collection for Lorod, Lauren Rodriguez has infused workwear and uniform concepts with a certain level of joie de vivre. It’s not a new leaf for the downtown designer, but it is a shift from the brand’s once-heady studies on abstraction and feeling. The Pre-Fall collection has a sort of instant visual appeal. See a midi dress inspired byA League of Their Own’s costumes, want a midi-dress in creme silk worthy of Madonna. Simple.Chalk the change up to Lorod’s status as a newly solo venture. After just 18 months, Rodriguez has parted ways with collaborator Michael Freels, shifting the focus oh-so-slightly. The core tenets are still the same: derrière-flattering denim paired with a boxy jacket, cerebral knitwear (this season’s is inspired by a heating layer worn by the Air Force under their flight suits). But there is an easier nature to the line on the whole. Worn by model Sophie Koella in the lookbook and accessorized with tennis sweatbands and a vintage racket, the overall picture has a more social media–friendly spirit without losing its core intellectualism. Let’s see if millennials and Gen Z pick up on it—that coral silk suit begs for an It-girl spin.
5 December 2018
You would never guess at the instability of the fashion world, or the breakneck pace of change and confusion that is plaguing so many brands, retailers, and publishers, at a Lorod show. That’s probably because Lorod, the just-about-one-year-old collection from Lauren Rodriguez and Michael Freels, has been doing everything right since the beginning. Rodriguez and Freels launched with pre-collections only, making the CFDA’s new June-December calendar feel like a kind of corporate catch-up to the wave these young designers were already riding. The duo has also been quietly redefining what a fashion event can look like by swapping white-box galleries for sentimental haunts around Manhattan and guest lists that include some of fashion’s familiar faces, but more of their own friends, muses, and families. Being at a Lorod presentation never feels like work, even if said presentation is happening on a Sunday afternoon. The rest of fashion could learn a lot from Lorod’s small, earnest, smartly executed outfit.And probably from Lorod’s outfits, too. On the runway today, models wove around hanging plastic installations and crowds of well-wishers in the label’s slick workwear. The design duo described this collection as one more about silhouette and shape than about color, and they explored dramatic sloped shoulders, nipped-in waists, and a cropped, tight carpenter-cowboy aesthetic they are becoming known for in denim. Among the many standouts on the catwalk were a black jersey dress Frankensteined together with a cotton skirt and sleeves that bounced and trembled as the model stomped through the space; an enormous patent jacket on Lili Sumner that replaced her lithe model frame with an aggressive, haunting shape; and a series of bricolage shirts hand-painted and whipstitched with friends to evoke a community crafting experience. There’s much more to talk about, including a brainily sexy clinging, ruched dress in pea green of the sort that fashion girls right now are simply dying over, but the crux of what makes this collection so great is that it’s not based on one vision of femininity—or masculinity for that matter, considering the male models in the show. For Lorod, there can be simultaneously a long, sexless denim jacket and a pair of jeans in the same wash that fit so snugly you’ll forget all about Bruce Springsteen’s iconic derriere.
One more thing: There’s something deeply ironic about a brand slipping its cast of artists and It people into leather Manolo Blahnik loafers while pulling references so honestly from workwear. The low, empty, and boxy carpenter pockets hanging around the slender thighs of a male model will probably not be filled with a measuring tape or a Phillips-head screwdriver any time soon. In their utility-driven denim and Carhartt-khaki palette, Lorod is creating a new kind of workwear: clothing that works for you. The number of guests of all ages, shapes, and sizes wearing Lorod in the crowd today is testament to that fact.
4 June 2018
Lorod’s Lauren Rodriguez is one of the rare young designers these days to openly discuss her mood board and references. (Now is a time when vague stabs at “serving our woman” and “no inspiration” have become the cool declarations, no matter how false they might ring.) Rodriguez doesn’t simply cut and paste from her mood boards into her collection, however, and that’s what makes her seasonal mental extrapolations at Lorod exciting.For prefall she was thinking of all the contradictions in late-’50s and early-’60s culture: space-age technical innovations brushing up against traditionalism and conservative family values. Americana and Westernwear are familiar themes for Rodriguez; infusing them with a technical, almost futuristic jolt gave her some new ideas. Most interesting was a wrinkled polyester in Space Station silver and inky black. Unlike other polys, she noted, this one breathes easy, so the wearer doesn’t overheat. The fabric was cut into straight-leg trousers, half-zip shirts, and wrap skirts, though its most genius iteration was a wrap dress made of a single piece of fabric that tucked and buttoned around the body. It’s eveningwear at its most casual, or styled with jeans, a clever take on a tunic. It’s also made, mostly, of recycled materials.Elsewhere, Rodriguez experimented in reversible knitwear, burgundy corduroy, and a black dance dress of collaged polyester and wool. There’s a new five-pocket jean for die-hard fans of her denim, and a swervy gingham print in green and chestnut that, while a little “Prada spring 2008,” looked covetable. Best marks go to Rodriguez’s expanded suiting, which is made of a spongy fabric that’s soft on the inside and crisp on its exterior. Space Age meets tradition meets modernity, all wrapped up in something people will be eager to wear.
2 December 2019
The landscape of American fashion has seen some pretty seismic shifts in the past few seasons, with a slew of young designers decamping to Europe. In a sense that makes Lorod’s Lauren Rodriguez and Michael Freels pioneers in their own land. The New York–based design duo launched their pre-collections-only label last year, and yesterday evening they held their second official runway presentation in an airy space overlooking the Hudson River. With glasses of wine and delicious seasonal nibbles being served, the ambience was far more convivial than anything you’d find during Fashion Week, where editors and buyers are often faced with jam-packed schedules. “We like the idea that people can come and just hang out,” said Rodriguez. “There’s no need to rush.”That laid-back yet carefully considered attitude was also evident in the clothes. Freels and Rodriguez are carving out a new identity for American workwear with Lorod, and this season they proved it can be both elegant and cool. Models walked out rocking slick greaser-inspired coifs and were dressed in hip-grazing utilitarian jackets and bias-cut skirts spliced with everything from sturdy cotton canvas to suede to velvet. The pair drew on images of the American Southwest for their backdrop, and those idyllic scenes gave the collection its pleasing sunset palette. Finished with literal pastoral motifs, the knit pieces were particularly impressive, a nod to traditional quilting techniques that felt fresh. One curvilinear sweaterdress patterned with what looked like crop formations was a standout, skimming the body in a flattering way. And after updating workman’s overalls for Resort, the duo redrew the lines on the classic cowboy shirt with abstract art swagger for Pre-Fall.If you were expecting cowboy boots, a footwear trend that’s been making the rounds on both sides of the Atlantic, then you would be mistaken. Instead Freels and Rodriguez sought the help of Manolo Blahnik to ground their collection with custom-made slingback kitten heels and dainty booties, a counterintuitive styling trick that paid off. It will be interesting to see where this fledging made-in-America brand goes next.
6 December 2017
Is the runway still relevant? It’s a question that young designers everywhere have been asking themselves lately. Some, like Vetements’s Demna Gvasalia, are withdrawing from the traditional Fashion Week model. Lauren Rodriguez and Michael Freels have an alternative approach to breaking the system. They’ve gone the route of pre-collections only with their label Lorod and held their first official presentation in the basement studio of an art supplies store in Soho yesterday. “We used to come here when we were students,” said Freels.Their art school sensibilities bubbled to the surface in the opening look—a Texas tuxedo with a gently curvilinear waist. Ruched, asymmetric dresses had an even more sculptural line and worked well layered over silk racer-stripe track pants—further proof that the glam-leisure trend could have legs this season. There were signs of executive realness in the collection, too, including a tailored two-piece suit with an extreme cuff that could have Japanese selvedge denim enthusiasts suiting up.Ultimately, workwear is at the core of almost everything this duo has done since they launched last year. They looked at images of American workwear from the 1950s for inspiration this season, but were struck by the lack of diversity in the archives. The casting—a refreshing mix of artists; friends; models; and girls found on Instagram, at parties, or on the street—made for a more inclusive picture of their community and the world at large. The clothes themselves had modern verve, too. A bustling crowd of Lorod’s cool downtown friends made it out of bed early enough to witness the parade of looks at 9:00 a.m. and were all craning their necks—and smartphones—to get a second glance at the twisted jeans and patch-pocket jackets in unexpected colors, including lime green. An event like this might have been sidelined at New York Fashion Week in February or September, but thanks to counterintuitive timing, Lorod’s makeshift runway got the shine that it deserved.
9 June 2017