Rag & Bone (Q8785)
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American fashion label
- Rag Bone
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Rag & Bone |
American fashion label |
|
Statements
As one of the well-established, traditional fashion brands, Rag & Bone needs to take steps to set itself apart from others. The label’s core DNA remains unchanged—it will still produce great quality sweaters, jeans, and jackets—but it’s seeking to innovate through subtle details.This season, classic knit cardigans coming in neutrals had mismatched mother-of-pearl buttons, adding a touch of that preppy aesthetic R&B has been leaning toward the past few seasons. The denim remained the same for the most part, and the designers continued to explore Miramar and Featherweight technology to get ultra-comfortable denim-looking pieces without actually having to wear jeans. To riff on that, this season Jennie McCormick decided to create a Miramar pair of jeans to mimic track pants but with that elevated touch. We’ve seen traditional track pants take over street style thanks to their comfort, but now you can buy a pair from Rag & Bone that feels more luxurious without giving up the comfort or aesthetic.Standouts in the look book included denim-looking tops made of mesh fabric. When paired with some jeans, the look is Canadian tuxedo, but the top is ultra breezy and lightweight. Elsewhere, bomber jackets got the eveningwear treatment. This season Rag & Bone’s classic coat came in leather with subtle embroidery detailing that paired well with daytime and nighttime pieces.
11 September 2024
Unlike other designers focused on celebrity placements and magazine credits, Rag & Bone’s Robert Geller targets the real humans of New York City and beyond who will be wearing his clothes in their everyday lives. “We’re trying to create a wardrobe that fulfills all aspects and needs of our customers’ lives,” he said. “We built it in four pillars: we have the denim which is our foundation and where Rag & Bone started, we have the ready-to-wear that leads the collection towards fashion with wearability, the sportswear, and the suiting.”Easy-to-wear pieces include sweaters styled with baggy jeans that Geller predicts will still be on-trend next spring. Fashionable touches like jersey stitched paneling on the ribcage and sleeves add interest to the sweaters. “I love it when we nail it. It’s hard to achieve, but this is who our guy is. He doesn’t want to look too dressed up. He wants to look good,” said Geller.Other pieces, like the tried and true Manson bomber jacket, come in new colorways this season including a washed blue that mimics denim. On the topic of jeans, the brand is introducing a new fabrication this season. Called “Airflex,” the denim is similar to the brand’s Miramar stretch technology, but also has a quick dry cooling sensation perfect for the spring.
11 July 2024
Since Rag & Bone’s chief merchandising and design officer Jennie McCormick took charge of the ready-to-wear, the brand has been skewing toward a more minimalistic and quiet-luxury taste. Think Khaite or Toteme but with more casual vibes, at least most of the time.The resort 2025 collection focuses on easy transitional pieces that still look luxurious. Glittering gowns for holiday parties are constructed from a knit sequined fabric to provide comfort without sacrificing photographic quality. Under McCormick, the brand is also introducing new outerwear styles; one is a faux-feather coat with a flounce effect sure to catch eyes.Meanwhile, more day-to-day looks, like a white tank and leather pants combo and a buttery yellow satin slip, are given an edge with accessories like metal hardware belts and grommet detailing. “The team and I were inspired this season by the feeling of peace,” McCormick explained. “It was all about balancing pieces that are quite easy along with others that have a bit more inherent luxury. We just want to envelop our woman in pieces that feel sort of comfortable but are also quite chic.”
15 May 2024
Robert Geller had his coming out as Rag & Bone’s Head of Menswear at the brand’s resort 2025 appointments. The German-born designer, who was a CFDA/Vogue finalist in 2010 and the CFDA’s emerging menswear designer winner in 2011, moved to Portugal after the closing of his namesake brand in 2019. “There weren’t a lot of brands that could have brought me back to New York, but this one is special,” explained Geller. “My brand was always sitting next to Rag & Bone in all the stores, so I knew it so well. Plus, Rag & Bone has such a rich history that I understand. I know what it should look like and the archive that I can draw inspiration from.”Geller has been quietly working at the brand since last September. You could begin to see some of his touches on the fall 2024 collection, including a sportier take on pants with a baggier jogger fit and an update to the best-selling Manston bomber in a vintage terry fabrication that still gives the oversized boxy look of the original but with more factor. “This idea of comfortable layering was really important for us,” he said.Geller also wants to make Rag & Bone’s go-to tailoring a bit more fashion-forward. Traditional tuxedo jackets have been cropped for a boxier fit and cardigans were made in a more substantial wool fabric so they can double as a top coat. He promises that there are more tweaks to come in the future. “My goal is to modernize it, to push it forward and also highlight the things the brand has achieved over the years as well.”
13 May 2024
Since Jennie McCormick took over as chief merchandising & design officer of Rag & Bone last year, she’s been working on solidifying the brand’s basics. This season, she introduced playful additions like sequins, hardware details, and mixed-media embellishments to her lineup of great jeans and staple cardigans.New York City has always been the heart and soul of Rag & Bone, but this season McCormick decided to leave the city behind. “The collection represents the city meeting the countryside,” McCormick said. “It's a real expansion of lifestyle—we’re showing more outerwear as well as things that can work as alternatives to traditional tailoring.”Standouts from the collection included the label’s first real foray into eveningwear—a casual yet elegant slip-on dress made of viscose and metal yarn—that McCormick and the team suggest styling with one of R&B’s edgy studded leather belts. The barrel-legged jeans got a real textural update through a quilted diamond jacquard pattern that added an element of dimension to the classic style. The 100% cotton Miramar jeans, which have recently gone viral on TikTok for their sweatpants-like look and feel, have inspired a whole new range; there’s now a matching jacket and pants made from the ultra-comfortable material.
6 February 2024
Rag & Bone’s SVP of men’s design, Kyle Sweeney, is determined to make barrel-legged jeans the silhouette of the season. Fortunately for those who have gotten accustomed to the comfort of baggier styles, he’s still keeping the top portion of the jeans loose but tapering the legs for a slimmer look. “This season we were thinking about the creative class in New York and wanted to bring together the spirit of the collection that matched the grit and kind of undone nature of that customer,” said Sweeney. “What you’ll find is we have an elevated focus on fashion denim, which historically hasn’t been a focal point of editorial.”While New York was the inspiration for the jeans, Sweeney looked to the Brits for some of the tailoring moments like the lower lapel gorges. However, the casual and gritty feel of Rag & Bone that customers are used to was still incorporated into the collection through undone seams and styling. Jackets like the banker striped blazer were paired with a smoky gray slim-fit jean rather than matching trousers. As for what to expect next from Rag & Bone, they recently announced Robert Geller as head of menswear design and Sweeney said that this collection was just a glimpse of what’s to come, adding, “we’re very excited about what’s next in the pipeline.”
19 January 2024
Since Jennie McCormick and Kyle Sweeney’s takeover at Rag & Bone, they’ve brought the brand’s focus closer to home. “We’ve been exploring all angles of New York, and what it means to live in New York, and be a New Yorker,” said McCormick. “This [collection] was intentionally created for the people in the heat of the summer in the city.” As those who live in New York know, at the height of summer the humidity and lack of air conditioning on public transportation is one of the limitations of getting dressed. Taking that into consideration, the designers intentionally chose light fabrics such as featherweight denim, linen, and poplin that will give you a polished look in the sweltering heat.“I was heavily inspired by this idea of the modern New York jet setter who encompasses [different] aspects of everyday life; and thinking about how that everyday New York gritty spirit comes to life in the hot summer months,” said Sweeney. Having a modular wardrobe was also important for those who would be traveling from the office to out of town locations on summer Fridays, a concept displayed in the lookbook. Poplin dresses are worn open with denim shorts underneath, while some of the terry camp shirts are paired with tank tops for office-appropriate coverage. McCormick envisions these clothes becoming everyday necessities. “We really felt like these clothes can take you to all the places you need to go in the summer.”
7 December 2023
Since Jennie McCormick and Kyle Sweeney’s takeover at Rag & Bone, they’ve brought the brand’s focus closer to home. “We’ve been exploring all angles of New York, and what it means to live in New York, and be a New Yorker,” said McCormick. “This [collection] was intentionally created for the people in the heat of the summer in the city.” As those who live in New York know, at the height of summer the humidity and lack of air conditioning on public transportation is one of the limitations of getting dressed. Taking that into consideration, the designers intentionally chose light fabrics such as featherweight denim, linen, and poplin that will give you a polished look in the sweltering heat.“I was heavily inspired by this idea of the modern New York jet setter who encompasses [different] aspects of everyday life; and thinking about how that everyday New York gritty spirit comes to life in the hot summer months,” said Sweeney. Having a modular wardrobe was also important for those who would be traveling from the office to out of town locations on summer Fridays, a concept displayed in the lookbook. Poplin dresses are worn open with denim shorts underneath, while some of the terry camp shirts are paired with tank tops for office-appropriate coverage. McCormick envisions these clothes becoming everyday necessities. “We really felt like these clothes can take you to all the places you need to go in the summer.”
7 December 2023
Since Marcus Wainwright’s departure from Rag & Bone, chief merchandising and design officer Jennie McCormick has been in charge of overseeing the company’s women’s, footwear, and accessories teams. She first started at the company as an intern 17 years ago and has worked her way up to where she is today. She grew up with the brand through all its stages and now considers herself an expert at Rag & Bone and its design philosophy.New York was the source of inspiration for her collection. In a world post-COVID, she finds that people are dressing for comfort but also with a desire to look good. “Our lives are so chaotic, especially in this city, and there are so many things people must do in a day,” said McCormick. “Our collection as a whole has that element of polish, but also the ability to move and feel good.” Denim jeans and jumpsuits made from a featherweight fabric looked to have the same dimensions and texture as your classic pair of rigid jeans, but they were ultra-light, stretchy, and comfortable. They were a slight level up from the internet viral “denim joggers” from the brand, which can be everyday appropriate for the office or running errands.Rag & Bone classic the Slade blazer came with a longer hemline to give the consumer multiple ways to wear it. In the lookbook, it was styled as a tunic with a pair of jeans, but it can also transition as a mini dress. Leather goods like bags, ballet flats, and belts had a metallic hardware detail to add a cool and tough factor to classic styles like blazers, button-ups, and trousers. “I think it’s a good expression of where our brand is going,” said McCormick. “It’s about the idea of a quiet evolution of the brand.”
15 September 2023
Marcus Wainwright was remembering his grandfather’s favorite sayings. “RTFM” stood for “read the fucking manual.” It was passed down through the family tree, often repeated by his father on Christmas morning; these days, it’s a dictate that has proven useful in his own life as a dad. “Any fool can be uncomfortable” is a little harder to parse, but Wainwright thinks the phrase has applications at Rag & Bone, where tailoring is becoming a bigger part of the offer (though not your grandfather’s tailoring, for sure).Like other makers of menswear, Rag & Bone looks more formal than it did prepandemic. Wainwright pointed to a shirt with eagles swooping across the torso as exemplary of the new dressier sensibility. In the look book it’s teamed with a pair of pleated trousers with volume through the thighs. The outfit brought Bryan Ferry circa the 1980s to mind, which is not a bad thing. This season’s quote-unquote suits have a modern sensibility. Maybe there’s a drawstring waist on the pants or a zip front on the jacket instead of fussy buttons. Or maybe it’s a matching jacket-and-shorts set in a graphic jacquard that looks almost like a monogram, with a silk button-down underneath. More dandyish than Rag & Bone has looked in recent times, but still comfortable. Wainwright’s grandfather would get it.
23 June 2023
How do established brands compete in a TikTok-first, DTC world, where fads spin in and out of fashion as fast as your thumbs can scroll? If you’re Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright, you go back to your roots, opting out of the trend-chasing that has taken hold of much of his competition in favor of a more focused message.The Y2K phenomenon, for instance? You won’t see it here. Even circa 2001, when Wainwright and his former partners launched Rag & Bone, he was thinking along more classic, essential lines. The LA denim scene was pumping out boot-cut flares, heavy on distressing and stitching embellishments at the time, but Rag & Bone made its jeans in Kentucky from raw selvedge denim sourced in Japan.A similar quest for authenticity animates this collection. There’s a Harris Tweed coat in the men’s lineup, its collar turned up against a chunky turtleneck sweater, and in the women’s an equally substantial striped wool jacket cut in oversized 1940s proportions that’s shown with a white poplin shirt and faded jeans in a relaxed silhouette.Denim, traditional English tailoring, and military surplus are the pillars of the label, so the mix also includes some camouflage separates, cargo pants, and shearling collar aviator jackets. Seasonal newness materialized in a blurry floral inspired by Saul Leiter’s photos of rain-soaked New York City streetscapes, and on the men’s side, knits and jeans in becoming shades of pink. None of it has been designed to light up on TikTok, but it doesn’t come with built-in expiration dates either.
15 May 2023
How do established brands compete in a TikTok-first, DTC world, where fads spin in and out of fashion as fast as your thumbs can scroll? If you’re Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright, you go back to your roots, opting out of the trend-chasing that has taken hold of much of his competition in favor of a more focused message.The Y2K phenomenon, for instance? You won’t see it here. Even circa 2001, when Wainwright and his former partners launched Rag & Bone, he was thinking along more classic, essential lines. The LA denim scene was pumping out boot-cut flares, heavy on distressing and stitching embellishments at the time, but Rag & Bone made its jeans in Kentucky from raw selvedge denim sourced in Japan.A similar quest for authenticity animates this collection. There’s a Harris Tweed coat in the men’s lineup, its collar turned up against a chunky turtleneck sweater, and in the women’s an equally substantial striped wool jacket cut in oversized 1940s proportions that’s shown with a white poplin shirt and faded jeans in a relaxed silhouette.Denim, traditional English tailoring, and military surplus are the pillars of the label, so the mix also includes some camouflage separates, cargo pants, and shearling collar aviator jackets. Seasonal newness materialized in a blurry floral inspired by Saul Leiter’s photos of rain-soaked New York City streetscapes, and on the men’s side, knits and jeans in becoming shades of pink. None of it has been designed to light up on TikTok, but it doesn’t come with built-in expiration dates either.
15 May 2023
Scroll back through a few years’ worth of Rag & Bone look books and you’ll see studio shoots and indoor sets in the form of hotel rooms, clubs, and the company’s West 13th Street headquarters. So straight off, this one looks different—and right.Brand founder Marcus Wainwright has long talked about the real-life New York woman as both the inspiration and the end user at Rag & Bone. Here she is, at last, on the street in the Financial District, the kind of woman you can’t help but notice. It’s subtle things: the stand-up collar of a neat wool blazer, the black leather belts jumbled around the waist of another jacket, the surprising juxtaposition of tailoring and authentic-looking cargo pants. In another picture, she wears a shrunken leather moto jacket over a blazer. It could have been a spur-of-the-moment, running-out-the-door decision after a quick glance at her iPhone’s weather app, but it’s the kind of thing that will have her friends and enemies asking themselves: Why didn’t I think of that? There’s a more oversized motorcycle jacket in the mix and a smart shearling aviator too. Outerwear will remain a New Yorker’s most important asset even if our winters stay snowless; it’s a walking city.A word about those cargo pants. Wainwright collects old military surplus, so he’s particular about the weight and texture of the materials Rag & Bone uses. The fabric for the pants was sourced in Japan, and it’s as close to old-school army surplus as it gets.
10 February 2023
You won’t hear the word “resort” come out of Marcus Wainwright’s mouth. Rag & Bone, as he is keen to remind you, is woven into its customers’ day-to-day realities, a point made by this season’s behind-the-scenes lookbook. Wainwright himself shot the images, at least two of which document a model taking a selfie in a mirror. In one photo she sports a double-breasted jacket as a dress over sheer stockings and motorcycle boots; in the other, the versatile footwear accessorizes faded black jeans, a nubby wool coat, and a black leather shacket cut to showcase a flash of hip bone.Tailoring is the foundation of the collection, as is the custom here. The shapes for pre-spring have a 1970s-by-way-of-the-’90s flare, with lean jackets and front-seamed high-rise pants. The lavender two-piecer looks like a low-key version of the circa 1995 Gucci suit made famous by Gwenyth Paltrow. Even more low-key, brass-button blazers have been styled with jeans cut either narrow or baggy.Because holiday parties are part of his customers’ day-to-day realities at this time of year, there are shoulder-baring, form-fitting dresses in faux leather or velvet (worn over a fine gauge knit for the chill of the office) and a devoré slip dress paired with split-hem leggings, another ’90s callback. Team Rag & Bone is still behind the mini-length in a major way, showing wrap-style mini skirts and a thigh-grazing belted suede dress.The men’s collection is notably suit-less, but the casual, item-y lineup isn’t short on jackets. They run the gamut from leather aviators and motorcycle jackets to quilted plaids, go-anywhere pieces for a post-pandemic moment in which dress code distinctions are less relevant than ever. There’s also a his-and-hers moment in the form of a leopard spot cardigan that complements the zebra stripe sweater in the women’s line.
31 October 2022
You won’t hear the word “resort” come out of Marcus Wainwright’s mouth. Rag & Bone, as he is keen to remind you, is woven into its customers’ day-to-day realities, a point made by this season’s behind-the-scenes lookbook. Wainwright himself shot the images, at least two of which document a model taking a selfie in a mirror. In one photo she sports a double-breasted jacket as a dress over sheer stockings and motorcycle boots; in the other, the versatile footwear accessorizes faded black jeans, a nubby wool coat, and a black leather shacket cut to showcase a flash of hip bone.Tailoring is the foundation of the collection, as is the custom here. The shapes for pre-spring have a 1970s-by-way-of-the-’90s flare, with lean jackets and front-seamed high-rise pants. The lavender two-piecer looks like a low-key version of the circa 1995 Gucci suit made famous by Gwenyth Paltrow. Even more low-key, brass-button blazers have been styled with jeans cut either narrow or baggy.Because holiday parties are part of his customers’ day-to-day realities at this time of year, there are shoulder-baring, form-fitting dresses in faux leather or velvet (worn over a fine gauge knit for the chill of the office) and a devoré slip dress paired with split-hem leggings, another ’90s callback. Team Rag & Bone is still behind the mini-length in a major way, showing wrap-style mini skirts and a thigh-grazing belted suede dress.The men’s collection is notably suit-less, but the casual, item-y lineup isn’t short on jackets. They run the gamut from leather aviators and motorcycle jackets to quilted plaids, go-anywhere pieces for a post-pandemic moment in which dress code distinctions are less relevant than ever. There’s also a his-and-hers moment in the form of a leopard spot cardigan that complements the zebra stripe sweater in the women’s line.
31 October 2022
Rag & Bone is turning 20 this year, but without much of the brouhaha that other brands celebrating anniversaries this season have orchestrated for the occasion. Founder Marcus Wainwright will host a dinner party tonight at Carbone, where friends of the label will wear the new fall collection. He’ll raise a glass to the milestone and make the point that he has been driving home for the better part of five years, since leaving the runway behind: that Rag & Bone is for real life.For fall, Wainwright recommitted to that message, introducing a collection of essentials that the brand is calling Icons, around which the rest of the offering is built. “It galvanized the way we think about things,” Wainwright said of the initiative. “We’ve always thought about [our business] that way, but we haven’t always clearly articulated that we have a perfect trench, or a perfect Breton stripe sweater, or a perfect Western shirt. Pulling that out all the way from design through marketing has helped us be clear about what Rag & Bone is.”That doesn’t mean there aren’t subtle changes from one season to the next. Shoppers have moved beyond COVID sweatpants and the post-pandemic honeymoon period that had them splashing out on party clothes. Rag & Bone’s jacket business is picking up with people finally going back to the office—isn’t it about time? So you’ll see a return to tailoring. The houndstooth coat Irina Shayk wears in the women’s look book is sharp, as is the men’s version. Wainwright also made room for a little fun. The creature stamped on the rear waistband of a pair of leather pants is the logo of Fox Racing, an extreme-sports lifestyle brand that has nearly 30 years on Rag & Bone. Cheers to the next 20.
10 September 2022
Rag & Bone is turning 20 this year, but without much of the brouhaha that other brands celebrating anniversaries this season have orchestrated for the occasion. Founder Marcus Wainwright will host a dinner party tonight at Carbone, where friends of the label will wear the new fall collection. He’ll raise a glass to the milestone and make the point that he has been driving home for the better part of five years, since leaving the runway behind: that Rag & Bone is for real life.For fall, Wainwright recommitted to that message, introducing a collection of essentials that the brand is calling Icons, around which the rest of the offering is built. “It galvanized the way we think about things,” Wainwright said of the initiative. “We’ve always thought about [our business] that way, but we haven’t always clearly articulated that we have a perfect trench, or a perfect Breton stripe sweater, or a perfect Western shirt. Pulling that out all the way from design through marketing has helped us be clear about what Rag & Bone is.”That doesn’t mean there aren’t subtle changes from one season to the next. Shoppers have moved beyond COVID sweatpants and the post-pandemic honeymoon period that had them splashing out on party clothes. Rag & Bone’s jacket business is picking up with people finally going back to the office—isn’t it about time? So you’ll see a return to tailoring. The houndstooth coat Irina Shayk wears in the women’s look book is sharp, as is the men’s version. Wainwright also made room for a little fun. The creature stamped on the rear waistband of a pair of leather pants is the logo of Fox Racing, an extreme-sports lifestyle brand that has nearly 30 years on Rag & Bone. Cheers to the next 20.
10 September 2022
Rag & Bone’s spring lookbook features an all-star, multigenerational cast from the ’80s supermodel-turned-Instagram scribe Paulina Porizkova to the actors Annabelle Dexter Jones and Hopper Penn to the model Kendall Harrison. Marcus Wainwright, who founded Rag & Bone 20 years ago as a resource for American denim and British tailoring and who for the last few years has been steering the company back in that direction, asked them all to put together their own looks for the photos.The idea was to drive home the honesty and integrity of the collection. These are not clothes made for the runway or for social media posturing. They aren’t even really the kinds of clothes you’d buy for the office, but the sorts of things you’d pull on after a work day or pack for the weekend: denim and chambray, Hawaiian shirts, tie-dyed thermals, and, with an eye to R&B’s Y2K-adjacent origins, shrunken proportions on everything from tees to little sweaters. Rounding it all out: sharp leather jackets and smartly cut blazers that showcase the brand’s two decades of expertise in the category.
22 February 2022
Marcus Wainwright stepped out of his office in a Star Wars tee from Rag & Bone’s 2017 collaboration with the cultural juggernaut movie franchise and a pair of shorts. He’s biking to work from Brooklyn these days, even amidst an early summer heat wave, but his “fit,” as the kids call them these days, was not just commute appropriate. It’s exemplary of an ongoing shift in the Rag & Bone thinking, which is more direct-to-consumer, less runway focused, and expressly designed for real-life, everyday wear.The showroom and the look book reflected the adjustments Wainwright and his team made over the course of the pandemic. Arrayed on a table were chunky patterned turtleneck sweaters in three different colorways, as well as camisole and brief sets in the same knit. Even if we’re all getting around a lot more, we still want to look cute on the couch. With that in mind, there was a rack of cashmere loungewear pieces in a more subdued palette than the cheeky tanks and knickers.Equally, though, this was a collection designed for a life back in motion. Color-block puffers came with snaps up the sides in addition to the front, to adjust their shape, and some of the men’s button-downs were built the way technical brands design climbing shirts with roomy shoulders and sleeves, for ease of movement and—just as important—outdoorsy cred. Sneakers with a retro ’70s profile were made from recycled yarn composed of postconsumer plastic designed to look and feel like shearling—cozy and cool in the right combination.
21 June 2021
Go deep, not wide is one of the principles that’s informing the new Rag & Bone. It’s a brand fundamental that Marcus Wainwright was putting into place pre-pandemic, but the ways in which lockdowns have changed how and why we shop—mostly online and mostly for comfort wear—have only made it more relevant.The new R&B look book drives the point home. A blanket poncho, one of the season’s essential silhouettes, is shown in black, camel, burgundy, and gray, while rain boots, another trending item, are offered in yellow, orange, and army green. Presumably the feet out of frame are shod in another boldly colored pair. Prints, meanwhile, are shared across categories and genders; a dainty floral shows up on the wrap dress that is the collection’s fanciest piece and on the sweatpants that qualify as the chillest. On a Zoom call Wainwright wore a hoodie in a noteworthy shade of bright pink; he said he had a dusty rose version at home.Wainwright quoted his grandfather. “He used to say, ‘Any fool can be uncomfortable.’ ” For years Wainwright did the runway thing, designing bigger and bigger collections that looked less and less like his lived reality. He’s now very happy to make clothes for the world he sees around him. It won’t always be leggings and sweatpants, but it will be without fashionable artifice. Therein lies another new R&B principle.
4 March 2021
For as dark as this year has been, it has clarified things. The lockdowns gave us lots of time to reflect, to study the numbers, to error-correct. Some brands won’t make it through the crisis, but the ones that do will run smarter in 2021. Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright drilled down to basics on a pre-fall call last week. “Everything we make has to have a reason to exist,” he said.It sounds obvious, but for too long fashion hasn’t operated that way. Collections were designed with an eye to editorial credits, not real-life wearability. And store buyers made orders based on previous seasons’ sell-throughs, then returned merchandise when it didn’t move or offloaded it at deep discounts. With runways out of the picture and brick-and-mortar stores closed for much of this year, brands relied on their own e-commerce platforms. Now that they have adjusted their operations, returning to former ways of doing things seems more and more unlikely as the crisis extends. “There’s a chasm between what works in a big way online and the old runway collection idea,” Wainwright said.It’s not all tracksuits, but this pre-fall collection is Rag & Bone–ier than ever, constructed on the brand building blocks of denim, military gear, and English tailoring. These are easy-to-wear clothes for a world in which the once strict division between dressing for work and dressing for pleasure is grayer than in the past. Wainwright believes the experience of the pandemic will permanently change how the Rag & Bone customer gets dressed—not so much in terms of silhouette, but in terms of comfort. Constructed of knitted wool, a blazer wears like a cardigan; shirts are half poplin, half jersey, further blurring the formal/casual divide; and pants are designed with our new ways of commuting—on bikes and on scooters—in mind. The lookbook begins and ends with swimwear. Optimism, it would seem, is essential to the brand ethos too. “It assumes people will be in the sunshine,” Wainwright confirmed.
14 December 2020
For as dark as this year has been, it has clarified things. The lockdowns gave us lots of time to reflect, to study the numbers, to error-correct. Some brands won’t make it through the crisis, but the ones that do will run smarter in 2021. Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright drilled down to basics on a pre-fall call last week. “Everything we make has to have a reason to exist,” he said.It sounds obvious, but for too long fashion hasn’t operated that way. Collections were designed with an eye to editorial credits, not real-life wearability. And store buyers made orders based on previous seasons’ sell-throughs, then returned merchandise when it didn’t move or offloaded it at deep discounts. With runways out of the picture and brick-and-mortar stores closed for much of this year, brands relied on their own e-commerce platforms. Now that they have adjusted their operations, returning to former ways of doing things seems more and more unlikely as the crisis extends. “There’s a chasm between what works in a big way online and the old runway collection idea,” Wainwright said.It’s not all tracksuits, but this pre-fall collection is Rag & Bone–ier than ever, constructed on the brand building blocks of denim, military gear, and English tailoring. These are easy-to-wear clothes for a world in which the once strict division between dressing for work and dressing for pleasure is grayer than in the past. Wainwright believes the experience of the pandemic will permanently change how the Rag & Bone customer gets dressed—not so much in terms of silhouette, but in terms of comfort. Constructed of knitted wool, a blazer wears like a cardigan; shirts are half poplin, half jersey, further blurring the formal/casual divide; and pants are designed with our new ways of commuting—on bikes and on scooters—in mind. The lookbook begins and ends with swimwear. Optimism, it would seem, is essential to the brand ethos too. “It assumes people will be in the sunshine,” Wainwright confirmed.
14 December 2020
Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright had been getting back into the runway show groove for the last couple of seasons, hiring performing robots for one show and installing a huge digital backdrop for another. But even if COVID-19 regulations had allowed for IRL events in New York earlier this month, he would’ve opted out. “I’m looking at the European shows wondering if anything’s changed at all, wondering where you wear that stuff,” he said on a phone call.Wainwright calls the lockdown period a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance to take stock. And take stock he’s done. Back in April he lowered the brand’s prices across the board, and in August he announced a Quality Guaranteed program that sees the label refunding or replacing products that don’t meet its standards. For R&B’s spring 2021 offering he focused less on “the new” and more on standards. “I definitely feel that look-at-me clothing doesn’t feel totally right, right now. It doesn’t feel genuine,” he said. He’s a big believer in normal: “beautifully made, comfortable clothes that make me feel safe and protected in some way,” he said.You’ll see a marinière sweater tucked into cargo pants; a tweed blazer worn over a t-shirt and a faded denim mini; and a bomber jacket teamed with a plaid button-down and organic cotton track pants. The R&B team worked to make sure the pieces are as mix-and-matchable as possible. They’re not look-at-me clothes, but the leather trench, for example, will get you noticed. Normal sounds pretty good right about now, no?
29 September 2020
Rag & Bone could not host a presentation this season due to the coronavirus pandemic. In these extenuating circumstances, Vogue Runway has made an exception to its policy and is writing about this collection via photos and remote interviews.This Rag & Bone collection, due in stores in November and December, was designed before the COVID-19 pandemic began impacting the United States. With holiday parties and long-distance vacations now in question during that time frame, readying the line for sales appointments required a thorough edit. “It’s not a collection of sweatpants,” Marcus Wainwright said. “But we did ask ourselves, ‘What makes our customer feel good?’”For the Rag & Bone team, it came down to comfort, quality, and a certain indispensability. Wainwright’s instincts had been pushing him in this direction pre-coronavirus. He’d already learned to distrust trends and the tendency—not just at R&B, but industry-wide—to try to be all things to all shoppers. But the crisis accelerated the self-examination and winnowing processes. What remains is an offering of not-quite basics, essentials with a long shelf life. Wainwright holds up as his standard-bearer a 70-year-old Savile Row–made blazer he inherited from his father. Making it to the year 2090 is a lot to ask of a garment in this fast-fashion era, but the tailoring in both the women’s and men’s offerings, built as it is on traditional English haberdashery, has a fighting chance. Meanwhile, the chief virtue of a warm winter coat modeled off of an old M42 army sleeping bag is exactly how ur-2020 it is: meaning it looks as cozy as a warm hug. Remember those?
22 June 2020
It’s been a minute since Rag & Bone put on a proper, bells-and-whistles catwalk presentation, so this season, making his return to the traditional Fashion Week form, Marcus Wainwright decided to have some fun. A shape-shifting digital backdrop created by the collective Limelight set a sci-fi mood you could attach to the clothes on the catwalk, or not, depending on your preference. As Wainwright noted after the show, the Rag & Bone idiom is pretty well defined at this point; the brand’s success is staked on its skill in finding novel ways to update its vocabulary of English tailoring, military staples, and durable workwear, and this outing wasn’t about reinventing any wheels. Nor, Wainwright added, did it bother with that old fashion collection trope, a theme. “I just think we’ve moved past the point where we have to say, ‘Okay, this season we’re thinking about, I don’t know, gamekeepers or something,’” he noted. “It’s just, like, let’s make some cool clothes, and let’s put on a good show.”The fact that Wainwright wasn’t grafting some big concept or organizing referent onto his—yes—cool clothes left room for an observer to make up her own story about what was going on here. Who was this Rag & Bone woman, sometimes city slick in deconstructed trenchcoats, sometimes Day-Glo wigged and decked out in a barely there slip dress, sometimes kitted out for a long trudge through nature in a long, capelike parka? A spy, surely, tracking her quarry—let’s say a money-laundering international arms dealer with a fondness for EDM—from the gilded lobby of a Swiss bank to a Berlin nightclub to a muddy English rave. That was one way to look at the show; another was to think, Hmm, that oversize poplin button-down looks super versatile and those lanky sweaterdresses seem awfully cozy. Either interpretation allowed you room to savor the excellent over-the-knee boots, with their forceful, rubber-soled stomp.Our menswear protagonist wasn’t quite as high drama as his shape-shifting female counterpart, but he too gave off a whiff of narrative—there was something about the florals here and there and the smudged quality of the camo that made you see this guy as a bit of a lovelorn romantic, albeit one suited up for daily urban battle. Or he’s just a man who likes his natty English tailoring/slick takes on military outerwear/no-fuss workwear classics with the occasional sultry twist. Take your pick.
7 February 2020
This fall collection marks a new beginning of sorts for Rag & Bone. Marcus Wainwright, the brand’s founder, has found his way back to the design floor. “It’s much more pushed from what we’ve been doing,” he said at a showroom appointment. A quick look around backed that up. The label had perhaps strayed somewhat from its English haberdashery, military, and workwear roots in the wake of the streetwear tsunami, like so many of its peers.Here, the first thing you noticed was the renewed attention to tailoring, which included suits in a lived-in brushed worsted wool, “not too precious or crisp”; welt knit jackets that wear like cardigans; and an excellent Harris Tweed top coat. The label is introducing an outerwear program that riffs on old M42 army sleeping bag that Wainwright picked up years ago, and the technical parka it inspired is also sharp-looking. There was even a collaboration with—wait for it— Laura Ashley. Wainwright appreciates the irony of the partnership; Laura Ashley is so quintessentially English.“I never started this as a business,” he said of Rag & Bone’s mid-aughts beginnings. But a business it became, and a pretty substantial one, too. Wainwright had been wearing many hats, especially after the departure of his former partner David Neville, but he says he’s happiest when he’s designing. “The idea was always to make clothes where you could feel what had gone into them,” Wainwright explained. “I don’t know that we’ve always achieved that, but it’s the goal.”
11 January 2020
On a New York day like today, with one of the season’s first snowfalls dusting everything white, it’s hard to remember what 90 degrees feels like—but sure enough, the heat will come back around in six months time. Rag & Bone’s new collection is designed with those high summer moments in mind. There’s an emphasis on linen, seen on a relaxed pantsuit and a drawstring-waist jumpsuit, and a pastel color palette that R&B founder Marcus Wainwright describes as “more optimistic than usual.”Women’s suiting is way up for R&B, an increase that’s mirrored across the industry. British tailoring is the backbone of Wainwright’s brand, but what makes the label’s suiting distinctive is its chilled-out sensibility. It’s less Savile Row than Venice Beach. Wainwright calls the label’s Venice store an “inspiring spot,” and it informed the women’s and men’s R&B offerings this season. The dudes got an oversized camp shirt with a repeat print of a Cali skateboarder catching air, but it’s highly likely to make it into some women’s closets too.
11 December 2019
Marcus Wainwright walked away from the runway three years ago. In the meantime, he’s presented photo exhibitions, hosted interactive dinners, and otherwise kept it lo-fi. You couldn’t describe his return to the runway that way today. For entertainment, there were modern dancers, a pair of drummers, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (so good they gave you chills), and a robot shooting video that played on LED screens.Having freed himself from the runway obligations of seasonal themes and editorial statements, Wainwright had recently turned his eye to the world around him. “From the ground up” became the Rag & Bone approach, meaning that the more the clothes looked like real life the better. So why come back? “I’d forgotten how much I missed it,” he said wryly afterward. Emphasis on wryly. If Wainwright made it harder than it necessarily needed to be with all the extras, the clothes maintained a sense of IRL cool. “There was no inspiration per se,” he said. “We were just highlighting the characters of New York, pointing out that you can go to Rag & Bone and be anyone that you want to be.”Putting that concept into practice, Wainwright and co. mixed men’s and women’s looks together on the racks and let whim lead them. The brand signatures of English tailoring, workwear, military, and sport provided a framework, but the rules were loose. Some girls wore three-piece suits and others wore backless scarf dresses over track pants. There were micro-minis and short shorts or JNCO-wide jeans.Two takeaways emerged. The first was artful layering. If a sweater wasn’t shrugged across the shoulders, a shirt was tied around the waist, and many of the looks featured dresses over pants. The second was bare skin on display thanks to low-slung, waistband-less jeans, unbuttoned shirts and solo blazers, and strappy 1990s-ish mules. Being one of those New York City characters Wainwright was talking about, we can safely say he nailed the vibe of the summertime streets.
6 September 2019
For years, Marcus Wainwright talked up Rag & Bone’s connection to the street, emphasizing the off-duty IRL-ness of the clothes. The design team wasn’t inattentive to trends, but it certainly didn’t follow them obsequiously. Tried-and-true essentials were the order of the day. So it was no small development to hear Wainwright say at a visit to the brand’s showroom that there’s “a call for more ‘pushed’ fashion on the men’s side.”As ever at R&B, the foundations are British tailoring, American workwear, a strong Japanese aesthetic most notable via fabrications, and a sport element. But as promised, those foundations were heightened this time around. See the pinstriping on a well-cut coat and the eye-catching color-blocking on strict military shirts, cargo pants, and tennis sweaters.The bomber with “44” embroidered on the arm that President Obama wore to a college basketball game back in February, nearly breaking the Internet in the process, was cut with a new floral-print lining made from Japanese indigo (and sans the 44 detail). Wainwright and co. made excellent use of fabrics sourced from Japan. Pull-on pants in a faded indigo cotton managed to look both fashionable and essential at the same time. He should add them to the Rag & Bone women’s collection, for sure.
8 July 2019
It’s a strange time to be British in America right now, political tumult racking both of your homes. Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright, an Englishman who’s lived stateside for nearly 20 years, designed the Resort 2020 collection with a “keep our heads down and carry on” mentality. And yet the resulting collection of proper tweeds and slouchy knits reads as a tribute to the best of both countries. That is, in essence, what Rag & Bone has always been about—Anglomania-meets-Americana—but against 2019’s truly bizarre political backdrop, it reads especially poignantly this season.In his showroom in the Meatpacking District, Wainwright was especially proud to discuss the British craftsmanship built into this collection. Blazers were made by Linton Tweeds, an over-100-year-old manufacturer that produced tweeds for Coco Chanel. Rag & Bone’s come with a flicker of black Lurex—call it a New Yorker sparkle. Elsewhere, Abraham Moon, another legendary English mill most famous for clothing James Bond on screen, provided fabrics for a sleek women’s tuxedo. To counter all this tradition, Wainwright continued to riff on his workwear and military obsessions, with ripstop nylon boilersuits and cargo pants, and an injection of neon green silk slips. Zebra print, an evolution of last season’s leopard spots, appeared on dresses, knitwear, shoes, and skirts. A jersey dress in coral and sky blue zebra stripes is just the escapist piece we could all use a little more of in our closets, you know, in times like these.
30 May 2019
Last night at the Weylin in Brooklyn, Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright staged a happening. Production designer Christine Jones, whose credits includeQueen of the NightandHarry Potter and the Cursed Child, was responsible for the ambiance, and for the mimes who led attendees one by one away from the crowd for experiences; in one small room a bartender mixed Biciclettas (sort of like a Negroni Sbagliato) and asked probing questions.Suspiriachoreographer Damien Jalet created a dance that explored the AI topic, and the tech wizard Ross Goodwin, working with Aaron Duffy, installed an artificial intelligence system whose mission for the evening was to come up with the recipe for a perfect dinner party. One of its learnings: “A damn good dinner party is a gathering of exceptional people for unexpected shenanigans, baller food, and killer music. For it to be damn good, it really needs to be something rather knowing about it.” Let’s just say, the evening qualified, save maybe for the moment when Goodwin said that “AI will redefine the photographic experience. In a few years . . . it will help us write with cameras, instead of just with pens.” Gulp. The media types in the room took notes.Wainwright himself made a toast before dinner (main course: grilled cucumbers and potatoes that were better than that description sounds). And of course, he also provided the clothes that his boldfaced guests were wearing—Liev Schreiber, Keri Russell, André Holland, Carolyn Murphy, and Oscar Isaac among them. Said clothes would’ve fit in at any bar or restaurant in hipster Williamsburg. There were faded jeans cut in the current fashion, with high waists and boy-fit legs cropped well above the ankles. There was spiffed-up workwear in the form of a hooded army green jumpsuit and loads of cargo pants and shirts that looked like they could’ve come from a surplus store (a Fall ’19 trend). And there was outerwear in many forms, with most coats putting an emphasis on function, in keeping with the Rag & Bone m.o. of making clothes for real life.Wainwright swore off runway shows a couple of years ago. He was one of the first to understand that there are better ways to create an aura around a brand. The real trick would’ve been getting all those celebs to pose for these lookbook pictures. We’ve seen how far those kinds of pics can spread for other brands. But barring that, last night was about as off-the-wall and entertaining as Fashion Week dinner parties get. Damn good, even.
9 February 2019
We live in an age of meditation apps, Whole30 diets, and intergalactic-inspired adaptogens. Self-improvement is everywhere. The idea is that one could always be more glowing, more well, or more peaceful. Trouble is, these constant reminders of self-betterment can pile up in a very unpeaceful way. Enter Rag & Bone with a Pre-Fall collection so instantly mood-brightening, without being overly aspirational, it could almost—justalmost—make you get back on gluten.Founder Marcus Wainwright divided the collection into three main themes: tailoring, dresses, and prints. Sounds simple enough, but within each category are joyous little surprises, like the trailing adjustable ribbon straps on a dot slip dress or the contrast paneling on a bordeaux houndstooth suit. Everything is imbued with a multipurpose spirit, with large ecru-color buttons appearing on trousers, dresses, and skirts that allow wearers to conceal or reveal as they wish. With fine-rib tees in neon green and floaty beach dresses in ivory, this collection is one that allows its women to feel like a slightly more polished version of themselves—better but not oppressively so. It makes sense, then, that a yellow knit readskindin intarsia. Who wouldn’t want clothes that are kind to the body? Rag & Bone’s revamped jeans, now categorized into groups by waist-to-hip ratio, are certainly woman-friendly.
14 December 2018
More and more, the business of Fashion Week is happening off the runway. Rag & Bone has a time slot on the New York schedule this season, but not for a traditional show. Founder Marcus Wainwright is hosting a cocktail party on the High Line along with a screening of the label’s latest film. Its blockbuster cast includes Kate Mara, Boyd Holbrook, Pom Klementieff, Lakeith Stanfield, Lake Bell, Jon Hamm, and Emma Roberts. The possibility of rubbing elbows with stars like that ensures it will be a well-attended gathering. More importantly, in Wainwright’s view, those boldfacers guarantee that his brand message for Spring ’19 will spread far and wide via the Internet and social media. If designers could convince celebrities to model on the catwalk, the future of runway shows would look a lot less uncertain.The new women’s collection, which was set up in the Rag & Bone showroom the week before Labor Day, is a convincing representation of what any one of those actresses might wear off-duty. There was a handful of pantsuits, a wide array of knits, the ubiquitous tracksuit, and, of course, denim, which along with tailoring is the foundation of Wainwright’s brand. On the suit front, a mauve-y pink corduroy style was the standout. The most surprising look in the lineup was a white pinafore dress with a sporty racerback, shown with boots. Dresses are apparently a growing part of the Rag & Bone offering. The move away from the runway has allowed the design team to focus on wardrobing—i.e., clothes and accessories that cover all the bases, rather than flashy editorial statements. Sneakers with cool vulcanized soles and a versatile leather bag that unsnaps to pack flat are also hits with customers, Wainwright said, so count on seeing more of those for Spring and going forward.
6 September 2018
Rag & Bone was once one of New York Fashion Week’s buzziest affairs. Now the brand shows its collections in showroom appointments where its clothing fills out many rails and shelves, with the mission of shifting its focus from runway fashion to the kinds of smart, city-slick pieces that suit lifestyles on the move. The Resort collection is filled with a myriad options in that just-elevated-enough vein, like a washed military-inspired suit in soft olive green or a velvet jumpsuit with a spaghetti-strap top. A range of whipstitched pieces with primary-color stitching turned shirts and blazers playful, while the brand has evolved its knitwear to include a selection of intarsia sweaters with animals printed across chests with their names in Japanese written below.Perhaps a trip to Tokyo inspired the leaping tigers? Without founder Marcus Wainwright’s distinct voice to explain, you’ll have to use your own imagination to see how pieces like the Lurex-shot skinny sweaters, velvet suits in a red-flecked pattern, and shimmering metallic puffas all relate together. I’d venture it’s this: In a world of oversharing and visual saturation, women want clothing that feels special but doesn’t make them look like a victim to trendiness or flash. My vote is for the square-toed leather knee boots and a navy silk dress, but should you disagree, Rag & Bone has plenty of other essentials laced with interesting accents on offer.
6 June 2018
Marcus Wainwright opted out of a fashion show again this season, but his Rag & Bone brand still had a moment in the spotlight. Last week, he premiered a short film at the Metrograph. Ansel Elgort and Kate Mara starred, Thom Yorke did the music, and choreographer Benjamin Millepied was one of three codirectors. Rag & Bone clothes naturally played supporting roles. When asked if he or the label he founded lose anything by not presenting on the runway, Wainwright didn’t hesitate: “It’s not the right thing to spend a million dollars on anymore. The film went way further than a show [could]. It reaches many more people.”Eliminating costly runway productions (and the attendant pressures of designing to a theme and creating shock value) has changed the nature of Rag & Bone collections. “It’s given us the freedom to be very eclectic,” Wainwright said. “You can be more honest to the customer.” Indeed, walking the racks in the brand’s meatpacking district headquarters today felt like riffling through a closet with a little bit of tailoring, a little bit of athleisure, a lot of denim, and, since it’s a Fall collection, plenty of outerwear—from straight-up peacoats and duffels to an on-trend electric blue puffer.The overall impression was authentic and coolly down-to-earth. (Sporty trainers, colorful rope belts, and bandana scarves did heavy lifting in the lookbook.) “The days of me telling you what to wear are over,” Wainwright said. Still, there was one idea that stood out: He’s going to sell a lot of those snap-fly wool sweatpants.
8 February 2018
Marcus Wainwright opted out of a fashion show again this season, but his Rag & Bone brand still had a moment in the spotlight. Last week, he premiered a short film at the Metrograph. Ansel Elgort and Kate Mara starred, Thom Yorke did the music, and choreographer Benjamin Millepied was one of three codirectors. Rag & Bone clothes naturally played supporting roles. When asked if he or the label he founded lose anything by not presenting on the runway, Wainwright didn’t hesitate: “It’s not the right thing to spend a million dollars on anymore. The film went way further than a show [could]. It reaches many more people.”Eliminating costly runway productions (and the attendant pressures of designing to a theme and creating shock value) has changed the nature of Rag & Bone collections. “It’s given us the freedom to be very eclectic,” Wainwright said. “You can be more honest to the customer.” Indeed, walking the racks in the brand’s meatpacking district headquarters today felt like riffling through a closet with a little bit of tailoring, a little bit of athleisure, a lot of denim, and, since it’s a Fall collection, plenty of outerwear—from straight-up peacoats and duffels to an on-trend electric blue puffer.The overall impression was authentic and coolly down-to-earth. (Sporty trainers, colorful rope belts, and bandana scarves did heavy lifting in the lookbook.) “The days of me telling you what to wear are over,” Wainwright said. Still, there was one idea that stood out: He’s going to sell a lot of those snap-fly wool sweatpants.
8 February 2018
Rag & Bone’sStar Warscollaboration launched last month and sold out at light speed. It didn’t take long for sweatshirts from the release to begin reselling on eBay in the low four figures. The message: Never underestimate the power of the Force. Or the irresistibility of a product that a limited number of people can get their hands on. Since moving away from the runway show format a year ago, Rag & Bone founder Marcus Wainwright has been experimenting with new methods of getting his brand’s message across. Judging by those eBay stats, he’s not the only one who’s eager to get in on the “drop” phenomenon pioneered by streetwear brands like Supreme and Kith.But as different as his marketing plan is now compared to a year ago, the Rag & Bone ready-to-wear formula remains steady, with its emphasis on denim and its utilitarian streak. Pre-Fall’s long, lean coat and flares in soft washed denim was a nice evolution of the head-to-toe jean look. And there will be customers for the striped cropped overalls. Both a crinkle nylon hooded rain jacket and an easy V-neck shirtdress turned up in a pretty shade of lilac. Wainwright said he fell for the Brooklyn Museum’s recent Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective. That lilac hue could’ve come from one of her canvases. He hinted that her personal style will influence the label’s upcoming Fall collection. FromThe Last Jedito Ghost Ranch is quite a trip. Rag & Bone makes it easy.
14 December 2017
Don’t expect to see Rag & Bone back on the NYFW calendar anytime soon. Marcus Wainwright has left the Church of the Fashion Show. The better to frame his collections as answers to the questions: How do shoppers shop? And how do wearers wear? The latest Rag & Bone outing wasn’t really a Spring/Summer collection; rather, it was a selection of clothes for various turns of the weather, a sop to the fact that Rag & Bone is a global brand—one that trades in goods that aren’t meant to look passé after a season has passed.Which isn’t to say that this collection was entirely detached from the fashion current. One of the most striking looks here, for instance, was a single-button suit in hot pink. The suit is likely to be a big trend this season, and this iteration put a decidedly new spin on the tailoring Rag & Bone has been known for, thanks to its flashy color and slouchy cut. Bold color was a surprising emphasis, in general—the cheerful yellow floral slip dresses, the streaks of lipstick red, and the hits of neon came off as something of a departure for the brand. Wainwright’s sense of measure in deploying his palette was very familiar, though. The collection was grounded in its more self-effacing Rag & Bone signatures: e.g., military-inspired jackets, British schoolboy tailoring, and sporty pieces such as track pants.Freed from the need to think in terms of a singular show silhouette or creating full looks with an editorial focus, Wainwright seems to have found his playful side. Sometimes you detected that note in the weird, unexpectedly technical hand of a plaid overcoat; sometimes it was found in ersatz detail, such as this season’s scribble stitch added to the sides of sweatshirt sleeves or pant legs. Upon inspection, it turned out that the scribble spelled out the words Rag & Bone—logomania of a distinctively unassuming kind. The denim was the most fun, eschewing the basic silhouettes regularly stocked at the store in favor of stretch-less, vaguely mom-jeans-esque shapes given some extra punch thanks to bright washes, color-blocking, or (in one case) all-over print. There was nothing especially outré here, but in its magpie way, the collection felt exploratory, experimental. Which just goes to show: For some brands, innovation is best incubated off the runway.
7 September 2017
Rag & Bone CEO Marcus Wainwright was in London last Friday christening a new store in the city’s Soho neighborhood, and another Rag & Bone shop is going up soon in Dubai. With more than 30 outposts spread across the world—Australia, Japan, Miami, he rattled off a list—the label’s new Resort collection was purposely designed to be eclectic. There’s a nylon flight jacket with a removable shearling collar for New York winters, a crystal-studded tank dress suitable for New Year’s Eve in South Beach, and for the flight between, a tracksuit in pink Japanese terry with a neat little patch on the jacket hem proudly announcing that the fabric was made in one of that country’s premier mills, Yagi.Resort is a big season for knitwear at Rag & Bone. Here, too, a nice range of options are on offer from fine-ribbed knits shot through with metallic threads to downy cashmeres. An oversize cashmere crewneck in black, pink, and white stripes and a chunkier, yet snugger cashmere pullover in speckled pink are exemplary of the collection in general. Basic, sure. Boring, no. Wainwright may reject fashion world artifice—at his 15th anniversary presentation earlier this year, he boldly announced that he may never put on a runway show again—but he doesn’t reject fashion outright. In fact, he’s rather bullish about the R&B business at the moment. Mixed in with the sturdy, chic outerwear, fashionable denim silhouettes, and those great knits were a handful of very on-trend message tees and sweaters. “Merci,” “Let’s Dance,” and “Have a Nice Day” they read. “Go Hard or Go Home” apparently didn’t make the cut, but Wainwright had a good chuckle at the thought of it.
14 June 2017
“There’s too much separation between reality and runway sometimes,” said Rag & Bone’s Marcus Wainwright of his decision to cancel the catwalk and, instead, reveal his Fall collection via an exhibition of numerous portraits (ranging from Joan Smalls to Jerry Seinfeld) shot by Glen Luchford and Frank Lebon. “The project was designed knowing we were going to have to dress a lot of real people—doing a runway show seemed tone-deaf. It’s just not relevant for us anymore.”Real peopleis a phrase commonly—if not overly—uttered in fashion, but for Rag & Bone, its usage is valid. The company has a far and wide, accessible reach, and within its menswear component, that wingspan is further informed by a “timeless approach. Whereas for womenswear, there’s a more seasonal shift . . . with men’s, it’s all about constantly perfecting the key pieces,” said Wainwright.For Fall, that sharpening hit high notes in its return to a tenet of tailoring, military, and workwear—Rag & Bone is best, ultimately, when it strikes these keys. (Wainwright can do broodier streetwear, but this mix is truer to form.) See: a camel topcoat with a black contrast collar, inspired by the designer’s grandfather’s classics from Savile Row; a reinterpreted English special forces field jacket; a great camo knit cardigan; and greater-yet denim utility pieces. One won’t ever find anything groundbreaking in a Rag & Bone lineup, but that’s fine. “Real people” want real clothes.
11 February 2017
Marcus Wainwright isn’t sure he’s ever doing another fashion show. The Rag & Bone CEO got out of that business this season, marking his brand’s 15th anniversary by replacing its usual catwalk extravaganza with an exhibition of photographs (and accompanying party). Clothes from the new collection were worn at the event by friends of the brand such as Keri Russell, Amber Valletta, and Selah Marley. As Wainwright explained at an appointment today, this change in the form of the collection’s presentation wound up influencing its content: Rather than aiming to make a few memorable points—ones that would “pop” on the runway—he focused on the integrity of each individual piece, updating and fine-tuning time-tested Rag & Bone items and mixing them together in down-to-earth ways.If there was an overarching theme here, it was fabrication. This was a collection made to be touched more than seen, with baggy jeans done up from bolts of special Japanese denim, outerwear and tailoring made from heavy-duty check shirting material, bombers of technical nylon that mimicked the feel of vintage, and generous amounts of both Linton tweed and knits that imitated its effect. The coats and jackets came off especially well among this collection’s motley assortment of pieces; everything from the camel-hair coat to the camo parka to the leather motorcycle jackets (a collaboration with Schott) was refined to the nth degree. In terms of workmanship, the intarsia camouflage shearling jacket made for a particular standout. As a whole, the collection communicated a sense of sturdiness, with a broad range of stand-your-ground trouser shapes and durable layering pieces, but Wainwright leavened the effect with a few touches of softness and fluidity. As he said, this wasn’t a collection meant to make any big fashion point. But it got its small ones across perfectly.
11 February 2017
Plenty of designers lament delivery schedules: Why ship cold-weather merch in mid-spring when there are months of 95-degree forecasts ahead? Few of them truly act on that frustration. There have been countless fur jackets and coats in the Pre-Fall collections, for example. Not atRag & Bone.Marcus Wainwrighthas been talking about delivering the right clothes for the right season for years, and his new lineup stays true to that formula. A sunset sweater with an image lifted from a vintage postcard, one of the collection’s central motifs, was made from lightweight cotton. Pants modeled after SAS uniforms came with a drawstring waist and a breezy loose fit, and the label’s bread-and-butter shirting featured the circa now-requisite cut-out shoulders and deconstructed asymmetries.Rag & Bone is turning 15 in 2017. The brand has been denim-focused since the beginning, and Wainwright and his team have a natural feel for the stuff. There was a good variety of it here: The fit of a jacket in Japanese selvedge denim was slightly oversize, as rigid as a quilted denim jacket and miniskirt were soft. Another jacket with a boxy shape was cut in a camo-pattern denim jacquard, a treatment that felt fresh. To accessorize all that indigo, Wainwright had lived-in-looking garment-dyed sweatshirts, a souvenir jacket with a sunset embroidery, and a just-launched range of eight fragrances. The scent development process was such a kick, he reports, that he’s working on candles next.
14 December 2016
Tonight marked a major step in the evolution ofRag & Bone. It was the first runway show in a while in which designer, and now sole CEO, Marcus Wainwright took a bow alone (the company was started 14 years ago). David Neville, who joined Wainwright in 2006, stepped down from his co-CEO position at Rag & Bone earlier this year. The evening also included Rag & Bone’s fragrance debut, landing in mid-October, of eight scents.Similar to last season, Rag & Bone’s Spring men’s and women’s collections were shown in tandem. This time, they came forth in a brooding technical production that featured branched and pixelated projections and a score anchored by a Thom Yorke track. At first, the set felt somewhat incongruous with the clothing, at least on the men’s side—save for a heavy black palette, the lineup was relatively straightforward, though perhaps marginally more streamlined and skate-centric than the de facto Rag & Bone beat. But Wainwright said something to make the observer think: “It’s about trying to twist the slightly clichéd American clothing that everyone’s gotten maybe a little sick of . . . the preppy, the rowing style . . . I wanted to see how we could twist that idea.”What manifested was a workwear-streetwear hybrid, rife with trim urban basics like terry sweatsuits and lo-fi black baseball caps with subtle diamond logos, which Rag & Bone uses discreetly. Wainwright said that it all spoke to the tenets of the brand—tailoring, utilitarian wear, technical clothes, military clothes—which it did, and did very well at times, but in other moments, one was left to wonder: what is it, exactly, that warrants my couple hundred of dollars for a pair of slouchy chinos or a crewneck sweatshirt? What's the extra incentive to pick this, in a crowded contemporary market? Some of the men’s collection needed more of a grab, more of a convincing reason to get behind it.However, the standouts were solid: There was an indigo series, including an ultramarine cotton twill jacket that looked as if it could’ve been leather. It was covetable. “That’s workwear, a Bill Cunningham element,” said Wainwright, making reference to the late photographer’s famous azure flak jacket. Another strongpoint was duffel bags, which had eye-catching hardware on the sides.In the end, it was time to address the big question—what was it like designing as one? Well: “I’ve always done the design, and David was always in charge of the business,” said Wainwright.
“But,” he added, “it was different, for sure.”
13 September 2016
Can we just dispense with the fiction of seasons, already? Fashion brands likeRag & Boneare global, and it's always some seasonsomewhere, and meanwhile, back in the OG fashion capitals, winter, spring, summer, and fall have gotten so brutally scrambled, you're not even surprised when it’s 72 degrees out on Christmas morning in New York, or wet and freezing in Paris in July. Marcus Wainwright, helming Rag & Bone solo this season for the very first time, made the executive decision to show an all-weather collection tonight, or, more specifically, a temperate weather collection, one that supplied a handful of looks that nodded at balmy weather, but also a good number of jackets, lightweight sweaters, and leather trousers suitable for whatever the local meteorology throws your way.With the departure ofDavid Nevillefrom the brand, Rag & Bone was given the opportunity for a bit of reset. This was something of a stock-taking collection, leaning extra-hard on Rag & Bone signatures such as motocross-inspired looks, English public-school-boy aesthetics, and ’90s-vintage nonchalance. If the collection as a whole had a posture, it was the slouch, evidenced in the baggy, tapered jeans, the careworn cricket sweaters, the oversize sweats with 8-ball insignia. Tunic-length shirtdresses, much emphasized, added a touch of crispness to the outing, while patchwork floral dresses and raver-proportioned anoraks and ponchos went in the other direction, bringing in a note of festival glamping laissez-faire. According to Wainwright, the organizing principle was “stuff he grew up with/loves/thinks is awesome.” Which seems about right, for a man flying solo.
13 September 2016
CountMarcus WainwrightandDavid Nevilleamong the designers who have dispensed with the fiction of “Resort.” The duo have established their own in-house nomenclature for theRag & Bonecollections they produce or, at least, those that aren’t destined for the runway. This latest Rag & Bone collection was one such retail-focused outing; though Neville and Wainwright likewise eschew buzz phrases like “buy-now-wear-now,” the sporty looks they showed at an appointment were clearly made to be worn in cool weather months when the clothes deliver.Part of the reason the Rag & Bone boys dislike that buy-now-wear-now phrase is that they figure that, even if their woman is going to wear a sand-toned sheepskin coat right away when she purchases it next November, they also assume she’ll be wearing it later, too. For years hence, ideally. That nubby sheepskin was a fine example of this collection’s relationship to fashion trends—though there were certain au courant details, like the slightly exaggerated sleeves and collar, the coat as a whole read as an item that could see a good deal of use before it began to seem dated. Ditto this collection’s track-inspired trousers, which came in French jersey and tailored wool versions, and its button-down shirtdresses and boyish, oversize knits.Not that this collection didn’t boast its fashionable flourishes. The cropped pants carried over one of the best Rag & Bone silhouettes from the Fall show, and new trousers, slit at the ankle, had just as much kick. Blanket stripe and magnified buffalo check provided the collection with a sense of rusticity, not to mention some graphic pop; punctured knits gave it its hint of sexuality. By and large, though, Wainwright and Neville didn’t worry themselves about novelty. The emphasis was on fabrication and detail, like the bit of stitch on the back of a coat collar, or the oversize rivets on the waistband of a pair of jeans. These were clothes meant not to catch the eye, but the heart.
15 June 2016
There are some (rare) instances during the collections when, after the applause and the bows and the door-dashing, you think, simply: That was agoodshow. The clothes needn’t have raised the bar conceptually; they just had to adhere solidly to what their designers believe in, what those designers champion. And that’s whyRag & Bone’s Fall (-ish, more on this in a moment) men’s lineup, which was shown alongside womenswear tonight, was one such occasion.“It’s all of the Rag & Bone influences that we’ve used over the years, now in one show,” said Marcus Wainwright backstage, as his co-designer, David Neville, fielded congratulations. “The English tailoring and classic English fabrics, sports, technical outerwear,” he continued. “There’s a lot of esoteric fashion out there and it’s not what we stand for.”True to his word, there was nothing hard to understand about these clothes, at least on the men’s side (admittedly, it was a little taxing to dart one’s eyes back and forth between the women and the men, which is why there were two Vogue Runway reviewers present tonight). Put earnestly, the collection embodied a return to form for Wainwright and Neville, recalling as much the early days of Rag & Bone—the stuff that made them so big to begin with, like the aforementioned sartorial Britishisms—as the more recent Rag & Bone, with technical applications abundant. A black woolen hoodie was expertly cut and exceptionally strong, all refined street and confidence. Look 1 featured a parka that everyone in the room could have benefited from this past weekend (the technical) over a skinny-sliced wool suit (the tailoring). The guys were also smart to include some slogan play (which can actually go wrong fast, but it’s on trend). Their phrase, as seen blown out on sweatshirts:Rag & Bone Universal. Fitting. Combined with muted bombers (less Alpha Industries swag, more soft and layerable), some nice tapered jeans, and outerwear for everywhere, almost everything pleased (though some of the BMX nods and a certain shade of tangerine seen on a quilted jacket were less successful).To the point above about the season: Neville and Wainwright deliberately omitted the labelFallbefore2016on their show notes, which might signify a move into a more fluid collections schedule, like so many others are trying. (In fact, some of the looks from tonight are on sale now—is everyone doing this?) Maybe they needed the hanging prospect of big time-change in the industry to re-center themselves.
Whatever it was, it worked. What a good show.
15 February 2016
Who needs theGrammyswhen you’ve got an invite toRag & Bone?David NevilleandMarcus Wainwrighthave had some top-notch soundtracks at their shows—provided for years now by a highly regarded fellow named Thom Yorke—but this time the Rag & Bone-sters outdid themselves. Yorke’s confederates in the outfitAtoms for Peaceplayed live percussion while two lineups, male and female, modeled the season’s looks. The set had terrific energy. So did the clothes.Wainwright and Neville were openly reappropriating themselves here, staging a canny remix of motifs long familiar to their brand. A touch of natty English tailoring, just about perfected in a single-button navy blazer; a dollop of military references, with the hands-down standouts being the fishtail parkas laced at the sides; nods to the ’90s in tricot tracksuiting and denim made to look high-cuffed. The fact that these references were old hat to Wainwright and Neville only made their reiteration of them that much more assured. There’s no shame in demonstrating fluency in your brand vocabulary.The old-hat reference that got the most play in this collection, though, was motocross. The theme was announced via some splashy tees and leather jackets, but the items Rag fans will be snapping up in droves are the patchwork denim, and sateen and leather trousers. It’s worth noting that tonight’s show marked one of the few times that Neville and Wainwright showed denim on their runway, and the patchworking (and the trompe l’oeil cuff effect) justified the garments’ presence; these felt like fashion pieces, not “jeans.” The knits here got a likewise directional spin: These were the collection’s most challenging pieces, asymmetric and cobbled together back-to-front from two seemingly unrelated sweaters. The effect was a little sideways, as though a sweater you already own and love had been scrambled by some recent blunt force trauma to the head. Intriguing, for sure, but challenging nevertheless. Other mash-ups had a more immediate appeal, such as the parka and bomber done in a silvery jacquard, or the excellent tailored track pants in Highland checks. These looks were both savvy and playful—a pair of adjectives that could just as well apply to the collection as a whole, in fact. Long story short, the Rag & Bone dudes were on their game this season.
16 February 2016
The news at theRag & Boneshowroom today was the denim hanging from the Pre-Fall racks. Yep, that’s right,Marcus WainwrightandDavid Neville, Brits who established their name with American-made jeans, have never put denim in their signature collection before, and they might not have if it hadn’t been for customer feedback. “They were asking for it,” Wainwright said. Pre-Fall, more so than their runway seasons, is dedicated to R&B’s core product, so alongside the tailoring and the athleisure-y sportswear pieces they’re dependable for, there were elasticated, off-the-shoulder tops and cropped trousers in indigo denim lightweight enough to wear when this collection ships around May.Seasonality was a key talking point for Wainwright and Neville. Mother Nature can throws curveballs, like 65-degree mid-December days, but by and large shearling is a superfluity come early summer, and you won’t find it in these lookbook pictures despite its prevalence in other labels’ lineups. Rather, there were baseball-jersey dresses and sleeveless shifts and a silk slip with thin cords for straps. On the sportier side: bra tops and button-front shorts. Nothing to get too worked up about. The gems in this low-key collection were the elevated yet offhanded denim separates; they looked like an idea whose time had come.
16 December 2015
Did it make any difference thatRag & Bonedecided to show in Brooklyn? Not in the sense of having any material effect on the pictures you see here, in which the background and lighting are indistinguishable from any other professional production in New York. Yet there’s a yearning among many designers now to get back to some feeling of authenticity—or rather, any feeling at all that takes people out of the usual show rut. And in the case of Rag & Bone designersDavid NevilleandMarcus Wainwright, that meant deciding to invite their audience to partake of something privately meaningful to them on both the local and the stylistic levels: to wit, a collection that re-channeled the ’90s of the designers’ youth, and in a community arts center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, which they both revere as a stage graced by Lou Reed and other members of the Velvet Underground generation.A swift read out in terms of clothes revealed slightly different reference points, though. Backstage, Wainwright said that the midi tube dresses and hoop earrings were derived from his memories of going to the Notting Hill Carnival in London in the late ’90s, and all the army-surplus references to MA-1 jackets, parkas, and ribbed sweaters came from “the huge collection of military clothes I’ve had since before we even began this thing.” Add in some slip dresses, technorave sportswear, mesh, and track pants, and there you have it.The truth is that the Rag & Bone guys are, of course, English. They came to the United States and made it on a commercial scale, which would never have been possible on British resources in such quick order. Now Wainwright is so deeply embedded in New York that he sees Brooklyn, where he lives, as home. Inviting his audience to drive out to visit his adopted neighborhood at nine at night was no big ask, in his mind, but more of an act of solidarity with a community. Giving back is always good.
15 September 2015
A curious thing about this evening's Rag & Bone presentation: The theme du jour was parkour, that pickup sport that sees urban aerialists turning the city into a stage for gravity-defying jumps and flips; meanwhile, the Rag & Bone clothes inspired by the parkourists were shown static, on stick-figure mannequins. Designers David Neville and Marcus Wainwright emphasized flyweight materials, like ultrafine nylon or the perforated mesh used, for instance, in a button-down, or ones that had a sporty give, like the heavy-duty jersey found in an overcoat. There were also lots of straps and flaps meant to pick up a breeze and underline the sense of motion. The tapered trouser silhouette here was another nod to parkour—the last thing a guy running up a wall needs is to trip over his own pant leg—but the military elements and savvy deployment of technical materials was signature Rag & Bone, uncut by external influence. For the record, Neville and Wainwright did in fact road test their clothes on actual parkourists: A video featuring Rag-clad dudes rewriting the laws of physics with their bodies screened at the presentation. But it would have been nice to see these clothes in motion, live.
14 July 2015
The Rag & Bone girl is not the type to ship off to Barbados for the winter, much as she might wish otherwise. Marcus Wainwright and David Neville's business at that time of year is strictly buy-now-wear-now, and with that in mind, they loaded up their new collection with coats, knits, and the occasional velour tracksuit. The clothes had a sporty mien, but in the end they looked more urban than athletic. Chalk that up to the relatively restrained color palette of black, gray, and white with a few pops of red. Outerwear had a relaxed, roomy slouch, the better for the sweaters, chunky and otherwise, they're proposing for underneath them, and pants have risen well above the ankle to culottes length, as we've been seeing elsewhere this season. Compared with their runway shows, which are artfully and sometimes elaborately styled, the Rag & Bone Resort offering was no-nonsense, full of pieces with a straightforward job to do. The one exception was that velour tracksuit. Wainwright, who lives on the other side of the East River, joked that it was influenced by his "Brooklyn roots," and he didn't mean hipster Williamsburg. It had a loose spirit, and it looked fun to wear.
16 June 2015
Designer: Know thyself. If there's one thing that this Rag & Bone show proved, it's that brands are at their best when their collections poke and prod around their most deep-seated preoccupations. The latest Rag outing was a fluent re-articulation of familiar themes—classic menswear tailoring; sport, military, and workwear-inspired looks; innovative fabrications; an offhand, streetwise way of putting everything together. But label honchos David Neville and Marcus Wainwright found a new way to spin their signatures this season by integrating a hip-hop vibe. The influence of '90s hip-hop was most apparent in the collection's pops of vivid color, inspired, Wainwright explained, by a deep dive into the TLC and Salt-N-Pepa videos of his youth. "It's funny how everything that looked kind of cheesy comes back around and seems awesome," he noted, ahead of the show.Indeed, that statement could be taken as a précis for much of this show, as indebted as it was to '90s aesthetics. There were those colors, for a start, and the likewise hip-hop-influenced puffer jackets, but the '90s-ness extended to the layering of lace-touched slipdresses and knee-length pencil skirts over pants nearly as trim as leggings, and then topping off the ensemble with a vast parka. Wainwright and Neville's take on all those motifs was a good sight more polished than the original versions. Their pencil skirts in shiny nylon or Lurex knit were expertly cut; their outerwear was done in literally slick fabrications such as vinyl-coated melton wool and given the flourish of an oversize collar, a quilted military lining in a pop color, or a shearling-lined hood. The puffers were equally covetable—muscular yet chic.All of which is to say, Wainwright and Neville were looking back at their adolescence, and their own recent archive, and viewing it through rose-tinted glasses. That was all to the good: They gave aesthetics in which they are totally fluent a notable upgrade, rendering them polished and modern, which is a better way of handling retro references than a straightforward homage. The Rag boys conjured a vintage attitude, but piece for piece, the collection looked new.For Tim Blanks' take on TK, watch this video.
16 February 2015
Lil Buck and Mikhail Baryshnikov walk into a bar…For Fall 2015, Rag & Bone landed one of the best, most unexpected castings in recent history. That's not normally how these reviews start, but that's the story here. "Rag & Bone is about opposites," said Marcus Wainwright, cohead of the brand along with David Neville. "It's about contrast—street/tailoring, America/England, hard/soft, and all that. It wasn't necessarily about dance, it was about movement in the clothes. It was a conversation about old school/new school." And so Buck and Baryshnikov did just that. The three-plus-minute video clip premiered at the presentation of the men's line in New York, and it was almost enough to completely eclipse the clothes—except it couldn't go unnoticed how effing cool Baryshnikov, now 67 years old, looked in the draped and layered collection.Wainwright said the concept came together after the clothes, but the line did look dance-ready thanks to lots of unstructured tailoring, draped knits, and long parkas, all styled with shirts around the waist, tonal scarves, and tall collars or hoods. Dance-ready, or perhaps battle-ready? "I love the ninja aspect of things, the idea of it being some sort of army, the idea of combat," said Wainwright. Either way, the clothes looked ready for performance, be it on stage or in a gym (not that you'd wear a parka to a New York Sports Club). Wool flannel pants were cut like sport pants akin to soccer warm-ups. Sneakers and backpacks were the accessories du jour. "It's not like we've gone full Gore-Tex," Wainwright clarified. The most tech-looking fabrics were really just coated cotton and linen. And the showstopper brought things back to Rag & Bone's roots in the heritage side of menswear—an impeccably tailored, heather gray, bonded jersey overcoat, sophisticated enough for a 67-year-old, cool enough for Baryshnikov.
4 February 2015
Marcus Wainwright and David Neville returned to their old stomping grounds in Notting Hill to shoot local girl Olympia Campbell for their lookbook this season. The environs weren't entirely incidental to the new collection's theme; as Wainwright deadpanned at an appointment today, the concept here was "old Englishman pajamas" (or pyjamas, as an old Englishman would have it). There's got to be a reason why clothes inspired by natty printed pajamas keep coming back into vogue, and odds are good this is it: Everyone is just totally exhausted. Lounging is the new aspirational lifestyle.At any rate, this was a low-concept collection. Which was totally fine: It's just Pre-Fall! It's about clothes! Clothes women are going to want to schlep around in, over the course of those tricky months when summer can't decide if it's ready to turn into fall and people are being dragged kicking and screaming back to the office after a couple weeks—if you're lucky!—of vacation. Rag's pajama-print slouchy silk trousers and boxy, likewise slouchy, double-breasted blazers struck just the right ambivalent tone: There was a certain formality to the look, but a really easeful feeling, too. Clothes for sleepwalkers. You could say the same about the crinkled cotton shirtdress or a tunic-length knit vest and coordinating sleeveless cardigan. There were some genuinely sprightly looks here, too, though. The '70s-esque buttoned denim pieces, including a pair of high-waist shorts and an A-line skirt, were full of fashion pep—just the thing to throw on that last sunshiny afternoon in September, as you wring as much of that summer feeling out of the day as you can.
16 December 2014
The winds of change are a-blowin' at Rag & Bone. This season the brand took up residence in Marc Jacobs' old space on the New York fashion calendar, on Monday night at 8 o'clock, a move that affirms Rag men Marcus Wainwright and David Neville's position as tent poles of the city's fashion scene. And yet the show they unveiled in their fancy new time slot served both to honor their elevation and subvert it. In comparison to previous outings, this was a conspicuously subdued Rag & Bone show—unshowy in its casting, restrained in its styling, essentially utilitarian in the outlook of its clothes. There was nary a non-neutral color on the runway this evening, and the prints were a black-and-white outline floral, and two riffs on camo. All the fibers were natural. Blazers and military-inspired outerwear were a significant focus. Pretty much the only flourish, really, was the omnipresent dangling straps; they offered a suggestion of movement and things unraveling.All that makes the collection sound rather snoozy, but it wasn't. There was nowhere to hide in these clothes, and the details of fit and fabric all counted. The series of looks in elegant indigo-dyed cotton were especially fine, and the surprising standouts were the Japanese terry dresses, specifically the sexy version in cream with a plunging neckline. (Seduction sweats: Who knew that could be a thing?) Meanwhile, the pared-down styling gave the Rag & Bone accessories—a growing part of the brand's business—an opportunity to shine. Bags were front and center, literally, but it's the lug-sole sandals, in particular the chunky mules, that will be flying out of stores come springtime. Like all the best stuff in this show, they were short on flash but long on kick.
8 September 2014
It's hard to imagine a person who wouldn't look right in Rag & Bone. That's exactly the point designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville made with their all-in-one photo exhibition/lookbook/collection presentation. For the men's Spring 2015 outing, they recruited people of all shapes and sizes—a pro basketball player, a stand-up comedian, a guy who makes perfume, the proprietor of a local bar, men and women, old and young—and the whole cast did the clothes as much justice as any model could. "We made a lot of points about the versatility of the clothes and the individuality of Rag & Bone," said Wainwright. "How one piece of clothing can be worn many different ways by many different people."Rag & Bone's men's line, now ten years old, isn't known for creating new challenges for a guy's wardrobe. The duo makes exceptionally easy-to-wear clothes with an emphasis on comfort, subtle detailing, and safe fits. This collection wasn't a departure by any means, but it did shine a new light on the brand's appeal.Forgoing the preciousness of a cohesively themed collection, this was a loosely curated assemblage of nearly perfect individual pieces. Best in show was the outerwear—a fishtail parka in a high-tech sailcloth infused with fiberglass, a replica-quality bomber in onion quilted nylon, a moleskin overcoat that could have been from any one of your favorite Belgian designers. Denim—the category on which the house of Rag & Bone is built—was given a worn-in look; a longer rise; a darted and tapered leg; and a cropped, raw-finished hem. The effect wasn't merely an updated classic, it was a total re-engineering, and to telling effect. Tops were long and languid, mostly stripped of the extraneous details we've come to expect.Wainwright and Neville didn't present a new vision for Rag & Bone here. They presented what felt like a reaction to fashion's adoration of conceptual design, and a compelling case for interesting clothing that people actually want to wear. "Some people look for fashion and they look for art and they look for things that are completely new, and I think that's fantastic," said Wainwright. "But at the end of the day, if you can't wear half of it, what's the point?"
9 July 2014
It's a funny old season, Resort. One minute you're looking at sundresses and bikinis, and then the next designer you see is showing coats and sweaters. Momentum seems in favor of the latter: Resort clothes arrive in stores circa October—hardly bikini season. Those stores are in the market for more "buy now/wear now" clothes, and as Marcus Wainwright asked rhetorically this afternoon, apropos of the new Rag & Bone collection, "Doyou'resort'?" Wainwright and partner David Neville are keenly attuned to their customer's lifestyle, and they make it their business not to offer her fantasies but to elevate her reality. Or, to put that another way, this Rag & Bone collection was about coats and sweaters, not bikinis. And not just coats and sweaters, although the slouchy leopard-patterned jumper had a lot of appeal, and the cotton moleskin coats were a collection standout, particularly a mannish version in pale pink. Other October-appropriate looks included a pony-hair blazer, also printed in leopard; a slinky velvet leisure suit; and denim-inspired skirts and jackets executed in rose-toned suede. Texture was key, in other words, as was the emphasis on looks that could transition from season to season. The signature piece may have been the waistband-free A-line shorts, done in leather or lightweight suiting fabric, which had the chillaxed air of skate shorts but didn't ape that look exactly. The shorts contributed to the collection's overarching sense of ease—the one quality it shared with that more traditional, escapist concept of "resort."
2 June 2014
Paint-spattered denim. Cargo pants. Lumberjack check, name-embroidered mechanics' jackets, and pinstripe tailoring. And Cosby sweaters? At first, it was difficult to discern the through line in the new Rag & Bone collection. Indeed, speaking backstage before today's show, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville themselves acknowledged that this season's outing was "a mix of a lot of things," and that was 100 percent true. And then, as the show settled in your mind, it hit you: This was a paean to the working man! Not just the working-class man, although his presence was keenly felt in those name-embroidered jackets, like the ones sported by Jourdan Dunn and Georgia May Jagger. But also the soldier, and the man of the land. Even the grandees in their pinstripe, heading to their shiny office towers, even they got a look-see, and so too the late-eighties, tracksuit-wearing, dole-collecting Madchester lad, who would have gone to work in the factory, if the factory hadn't shut down. Paycheck men, all of them.Moreover, Wainwright and Neville's egalitarian vision was large enough to include a wisecracking obstetrician with a large, happy family who worked out of his Brooklyn brownstone. The squiggly "Cosby" knits were a standout here—a collaboration with Coogi, the Australian brand that made the original versions back in the eighties. The feral hand-knit jackets were another highlight, albeit one rather difficult to connect back to the theme. But then, who cares? Consistency is a virtue much overpraised, and that "working man" hypothesis is probably rubbish. This was a collection that was more about great pieces than any ambitious conceptual or aesthetic proposition. Mohair check hoodie? Want. Baggy cream-colored jeans paint-spattered by hand? Need. Baggy knee-high boots in red? Have to have. And that whole Joan Smalls look, head to toe. Start saving your pennies, working girls. There was a mix of a lot of things here you're going to want to buy.
6 February 2014
Were the digital images of gridded boxes coded with hard-to-decipher labels (C143, H143, etc.) a clue to Rag & Bone's Fall collection? They were projected wall-sized on the West Chelsea venue where the brand hosted its Fall ’14 menswear show, during a few days in New York that is starting to look, thanks to presentations from Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren, as well as from R&B, like a fledgling New York menswear week of sorts. The screens served in a way as a self-diagnostic test for the spectators. The PR people saw seating charts; this reviewer saw a bingo card (analyzethat, doctors). But it was hard to connect any hypothesis to the show once it began.The collection for Fall took R&B a distance from the military-inflected one they showed for Spring and closer to their heritage of English tailoring and workwear. "I'm getting a little nostalgic at the moment," Marcus Wainwright said. "If you look at our first-ever two shows, they were a lot like this." He and David Neville showed a mix of tailored pieces with hardy staples: suits with tees or knits rather than collared shirts, accessorized hooded anoraks worn over pleated pants, and plenty of rugged work boots. There was a fifties flavor to the proportion, with it shorter shorts and higher-waist trousers, but the cut was modern: drop-crotched, carrot-shaped for the pants, with articulated seams borrowed from performancewear.There were pieces that seemed lifted wholesale from an earlier era, like a few great bowling shirts—but they were stitched not with the wearers' names, but instead with the words (and then, on the back, the numerals)ThreeorFive. One more riddle to solve, until Wainwright dispelled it: Rag does a strong business in number-printed T-shirts but didn't feel like sending them out on a runway.That may in fact be the key to Rag & Bone: Given the duo's success, they can now do more or less whatever they want. Asked after the show about the numbered projections, Wainwright revealed that they were the projection company's test cards; they just looked cool, so he asked them to keep them up for the preshow cocktail. (During the show itself, the projections switched to photographs by four photographers—Jeff Henrikson, Billy Kidd, Adam Whitehead, and Brian Ziegler—commissioned to shoot the models during their fittings. It was an effective conceit.) "That kind ofisthe key to the collection," Wainwright said. "There wasn't a theme, there wasn't a big secret inspiration.
It's about the purity of menswear, and what we believe men's fashion should actually be. In my opinion, there's a lot of fashion that really means nothing to a guy."Though the cut of those trousers seemed potentially challenging to a fashion-averse guy—"The two hardest things in menswear to sell are high waists and pleats, hands down," Wainwright acknowledged—there was plenty that was appealing and salable to choose from, whether the mack-fabric trenches or the shearlings or those numbered bowling shirts. (R&B's men's collections have proven so appealing and salable, in fact, that women apparently buy a lot of them, hence the girls-in-menswear on the runway.)It's something of a riddle (C143, H143…) that a show premised on purity and real clothing was as styled as this one was. But that, too, was seemingly easy to explain. "I think there's a lot of backlash sometimes against things that are heritage these days," Wainwright said. "People think that's been done. Every menswear piece really comes from that in some way. But people should be focused on how clothes are put together." The duo seem to have done some self-diagnosis of their own lately and settled on confining the tricks to the packaging while giving the clothes the cool but mostly unpretentious vibe of their early collections. The appeal of that isn't hard to decipher.
28 January 2014
It can be easy to forget that Marcus Wainwright and David Neville are British designers. Their business, Rag & Bone, was born here in New York, and was built upon all-American denim. This year, they acted as Fashion Fund judges, following in the footsteps of Proenza Schouler.Inspired by Nigel Shafran's 1990s photographs of English council-estate kids, their smart new Pre-Fall collection is a reminder of their UK roots, even if they did shoot their lookbook at an Upper East Side YMCA. (Fans ofThe Royal Tenenbaumsmight recognize it.) Like Shafran's pictures, R&B's clothes this season are graphic black-and-white, with athletic elements modeled after the shell suits the teenagers wear in the photographs. Wainwright and Neville's versions are elevated with touches of leather and mesh, and the fit has been tweaked for today. The key looks include a boxy baseball shirtdress worn over a crisp button-down, a black shorts suit with sporty insets on the shorts, and a knit tracksuit in white with black stripes that they teamed with an oversize tee. Also worth a callout: peep-toe leather slingbacks with contrast laces. The designers said the collection's delicate openwork lace dress was modeled after girls they remember from college in Newcastle. It added a feminine lilt to the lineup, but it didn't have the sharp pull of the other pieces.
4 December 2013
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright sent the ur-Rag & Bone collection down the runway last season. Surely there could be nothing Rag & Bonier than that aggregation of military workwear references, classic English tailoring, and experimentation with technical materials. And so, as Wainwright acknowledged today, the only thing to do this time out was to evolve the brand into a new set of references. Make no mistake: Rag & Bone's trademark tomboyish urbanity was on display here. And some of the looks, like the magnified varsity-style sweaters and slouched leather pants, came off as continuations of ideas explored in seasons past, rather than a wholesale departure. But Neville and Wainwright did seem to be aiming for something much crisper than we've seen before from them and, with their array of slipdresses, something much more diaphanously feminine. A soft and simple turquoise silk dress with a fluttery under layer of white expressed both the crispness and the femininity very nicely.But the missing element here was specificity: The best Rag & Bone looks derive their force from Neville and Wainwright's fetish for their references; last season's play with check, for instance, worked because these designers are so extremely fluent in hoary menswear suiting fabrics. They know what buttons to push. Here, though, with a starting point ofLittle House on the Prairieand women's pioneer-days workwear, Neville and Wainwright were on less solid ground. They did knock one look out of the park—a fitted overall shown in black and in white. But it's no accident that the aspect of this collection that communicated most powerfully was its overarching nineties-ness: Those string-strapped crop tops and iridescent bias-cut dresses were kissing cousins of the clothes that girls used to rock in London back then, and the look has a fresh relevance now. Neville and Wainwright know a little something or other about that milieu, and in this instance, familiarity bred success.
5 September 2013
Englishmen in absentia David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have spent most of their design careers in New York. Then London knocked, and Rag & Bone became the latest high-profile menswear label to join the city's expanding men's week. "We thought it'd be cool to come to London," Wainwright said after their show today, although, he added, "there was an added pressure to win over a lot of people who are much less familiar with what we do."Accordingly, though Neville and Wainwright dialed up the stage theatrics—mounted mirrors that spun to the Thom Yorke-selected beats, done up by London's United Visual Artists, who work on U2's stage shows—they distilled their designs to reiterate what Rag & Bone is about. Last season, showing in New York, they had laddish toughs in English fabrics. Here, they emphasized the Japanese. This included their take on a traditional Japanese sashiko fabric, as well as souped-up textiles from Japan including a sturdy-looking cotton washed with salt, and another coated with Teflon.Stoutly wearable menswear like this can feel like it's hiding in plain sight, especially in a city teeming with some of fashion's most experimental experimenters. Which gave a sort of poetic aptness to this season's unlikely collaboration, with Caleb Crye of the Brooklyn-based military apparel specialist Crye Precision. He has revolutionized camouflage patterning for the U.S. armed forces and made combat suits for Navy SEALs, but, Wainwright laughed, "he's never made anythinghecould wear." The Velcro-closing cargo pant here took care of that.
16 June 2013
"No theme," Marcus Wainwright promised at the start of our Rag & Bone Resort appointment, "just clothes." Depending on your point of view, that's either refreshing or inauspicious. We're on the side of refreshing. Hanging on a rack was a camel-hair chesterfield that was just about perfect in its simplicity, and there were other winning options where that came from, including a mohair cocoon color-blocked in charcoal and bordeaux, along with a fire-engine-red style bisected by a zipper at the hips. Unzip it and the car coat becomes a boxy interpretation of a bomber.That kind of versatility was built into pieces like their velvet track pants with military braiding down the side. "They're our Juicy pant," Wainwright joked, "without 'surf patrol' across the ass." Meaning you're just as likely to wear them on a lazy Sunday as you are during the week. Leather pants that followed the lines of a slim pair of sweats also looked good.Just the essentials. Trend hunters will have to wait until September. Wainwright shared this little nugget about Spring ’14: "Little House on the Prairiemeets samurai."
3 June 2013
It's hard to imagine how Marcus Wainwright and David Neville will ever surpass the ur-Rag & Bone-ness of today's collection: All the brand's key themes were fused here, cogently and with a ton of polish. At last, the Rag & Bone woman has emerged, fully formed.The starting point was aviation, as Wainwright and Neville explained after the show. Vintage flight suits have been a longtime obsession of Wainwright's, so the reference was a comfortable one, but the designers angled it in a few interesting directions, taking in the Pan Am flight attendant uniforms of yore, the dressy clothes people used to wear on planes back when flying was a chic experience, and the bold colors sported by the folks who work various jobs on aircraft carriers. Those influences offered the designers a lot of breadth, which they exploited; they also managed to focus those far-flung ideas into a coherent narrative, bound together by texture, pattern, and silhouette.The textural emphasis was announced in the very first look, which matched a "bon chic, bon genre" jacket of rubberized tweed with a pair of quilted leather pants. The Chanel reference was impossible to miss, but Wainwright and Neville made it their own by oversizing both pieces and giving them the lived-in slouch of workwear. The super-short sweater dress that followed expanded on the textural story, via its bonded knit trim, and established the collection's pattern play, which entailed reinterpreting classic menswear checks in a variety of trippy ways. In this case, the check was a houndstooth blown up to grandiose proportions; standout looks later in the show featured tailored pieces in a digitized Prince of Wales wool. The sweater dress also introduced this season's key Rag & Bone silhouette—a very abbreviated hemline, elaborated throughout the show by fitted and flared miniskirts and graphic A-line dresses.Two looks in, Wainwright and Neville had their premises laid down; the rest was just riffing. For those keeping score at home, the signature Rag & Bone themes checked off thus far included: workwear, traditional English tailoring, technical materials, must-have knits. Themes making an appearance later in the show included sports-inspired details (the racing stripes on trousers, the bolts of color collaring taut V-necks), rugged outerwear (oh, to have that glossy olive parka to wear out into the evening's snowstorm), and menswear staples, with a twist (to wit, the collection's excellent adapted trench).
Check marks everywhere! Perhaps the best indication of the strength of this show was that the looks were all so clean. In contrast to some of their previous efforts, here the layering was minimal and non-distracting. Wainwright and Neville are going to have a hard time matching this outing's fluid synthesis of their fixations. Indeed, they may just have to find some new ones.
7 February 2013
Rag & Bone, one retailer confided, is impossible to keep on the racks. The stuff flies out the door. The company's exponentially expanding empire of own-brand stores would seem to confirm that. New York, Boston, Washington, L.A., Dallas, Seoul, London… The dollar signs add up. For further evidence of growth, look no further than tonight's show. It came a full week in advance of the official start of New York fashion week, and it was, said co-designer David Neville, their first real men's show, fully separate from their womenswear outing. "In the past, we couldn't really afford to have the shows not on the same day—men's in the morning and women's in the afternoon," he added. "Now we can build it up."For all its commercial success, Rag & Bone's menswear hasn't always soared on the runway. The company has experimented with moving it on and off the official catwalk circuit—it hasn't shown its Spring collections in runway format for years—which has actually been to its credit. Despite the involvement of a variety of talented stylists, the very act of styling things up for a show tends to undercut the thrust of the line itself. It's a stumbling block the designers themselves admit. "Sometimes for us, if we go too fashion, it doesn't necessarily connect to people," Marcus Wainwright said. "[Tonight] was much calmer, it was much more pared down. I think it needed that."Fall's collection wasn't by any means unstyled—on the contrary, it was ably kicked into gear by Tony Irvine, another talented Brit expat—but it hit a subtler, less affected note than it sometimes has in the past. Neville calls the quintessential Rag & Bone idea "the mash-up of British tailoring and New York street," but here street predominated, with a slight air-force inflection. The irony was that the stripped-down approach actually made a stronger statement. The flight jackets were in some cases replicated exactly from vintage versions in Japanese fabrics ("The Japanese are so good at copying old fabrics," Wainwright marveled, "everything's identical"), but the nip-waisted bombers came in pebbled leathers in chilly new colors like mineral green. The silhouette was higher-waisted, with work pants modeled on Dickies and shorter jackets, and while there were plenty of suiting pieces, nary a tie. Instead, the accessory of note was a beanie. Tailor that.Neville and Wainwright even hit on a pretty neat staging trick.
The multimedia runway included giant projections showing slo-mo versions of the models as they passed. Rubberized yarns and coated fabrics played into that shock of the new theme. "It felt like a lot of yesterday, but a lot of tomorrow at the same time" was Neville's summing-up. Put more simply: It felt like a runway Rag & Bone that even a retailer could recognize. And recognize, you hardly need to add, with a smile.
29 January 2013
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have been spending a lot of time in the air. They were recently in the U.K. shooting their Spring campaign and Tokyo to promote their newly launched handbag collection, and tomorrow they jet off to Dallas to open a new store. Aviation is the subject around which they're gathering their Fall 2013 thoughts.For pre-fall, they presented a grounded collection, touching on sixties-ish silhouettes like an A-line shift (the black leather of which was decidedly not to Pan Am regulation), and playing on the idea of uniform dressing. A crisp button-down in white with navy details was paired with orange trousers piped in blue—a color combination that Pan Am did sign off on. Ties—is there anything more essential to men's uniforms?—provided the templates for the black-and-white jacquard of a pantsuit and the easier, cotton print of a button-down and PJ pants set.On the more feminine side of the boy/girl divide, they cut a cute shorts suit in peachy tweed, the material of which was woven at the same mill as Chanel's famous bouclés, and used macramé techniques to craft a cool openwork sweater. Macramé reappeared on the duo's shoes, and influenced the lacing details on an otherwise simple sleeveless dress. No flights of fancy here, but plenty of real-world options for the Rag & Bone girl.
17 December 2012
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright like to play up their bloke-ish charm. When Wainwright tells you that he's been geeked out on the Paris–Dakar rally since he was a kid, it's pretty easy to imagine young Marcus seated at the telly, rapt at the vision of a motocross driver shimmering in the Saharan heat. The Paris–Dakar was the starting point for Rag & Bone this season, and the designers' fluency with the source material galvanized a strong, focused collection.Some of the best looks here were the most literal. Take the low-slung black leather trousers on Aymeline, finished with racing stripes, or the seriously cool moto vests and jackets made out of luxe Italian silk satin. Perforated leather clutches and the palette's hi-vis corals, greens, and blues reinforced the motocross theme. But what made the collection not just shoppable but interesting were the intuitive leaps Neville and Wainwright took. They linked the driver in the desert to the Bedouin tribe emerging out of the background heat, and connected the Bedouins' cotton headscarves and robes to the cotton nightshirts, petticoats, and baggy khakis worn by Victorians on safari. And then, just because they could, Neville and Wainwright simultaneously updated the adventuring theme and brought it back round to motocross by doing a collaboration with Oakley. Oakley! The fashion redemption of which can only mean that some years hence, Crocs will have a moment. Yikes.Anyway. The refreshing thing about today's show was its clarity. There was relatively little of the layering that the duo have tended to overdo in recent seasons. That allowed strong looks, such as the zip-away parachute dresses, to stand out alone. And what layering there was felt appropriate and specific. Overall, there was an aura of confidence here—unsurprising, given Wainwright and Neville's command of their clothes' vernacular. Let this collection be a reminder to them that all future ones pass the geek-out test.
6 September 2012
Rag & Bone Fall collections, presented on the runway in New York, tend to play up the sartorial aspect of the young brand's heritage. The Spring collection, shown in their ever-expanding offices, favors sport. If whiplash is the occasional result for the editors, it's hard to imagine that David Neville and Marcus Wainwright need to worry too much about that. Their empire is on the expansion path, and they've earned the right to do just as they please."We wanted to twist the familiar," Wainwright said. So they did. Working with a new stylist, Jay Massacret, they shot this new collection on skaters in a skate park not far from their Meatpacking District digs. The clothes themselves had a motocross, rather than skateboarding, bent. Nylon cycling pants came in flashy primary-color blocks and, for more wearable effect, in black and navy. Wainwright pointed out that the latter, which looked more modern, actually harked back to the styles of an earlier day. So did the wide-leg shorts based on those the British Army issued to soldiers during World War II. Nylon parkas and a digitized map print (also knit into intarsias) picked up the military theme. Though military and motocross meet in the desert, by this point the designers might've taken a twist too many. The mash-up of influences and inspirations left assembled looks a little light on what we've come to think of as classic Rag & Bone.Still, there's Fall for that, and whatever new twist that brings. Will it be back to English tailoring? Consider only this: Last week, the ribbon was cut on the label's first London store, their biggest yet. Wainwright and Neville hopped a plane to check it out and will be back to toast it with a bash for London's women's fashion week. Then again, an L.A. shop's in the works as well.
26 July 2012
It's a good thing that Marcus Wainwright and David Neville are opening up stores in London and L.A. There's going to be plenty of girls eager to get into their Resort collection. The Rag & Bone boys are part of a surprisingly small group of designers who actually deliver cold-weather clothes in November and December. "These clothes have nothing to do with 'resort,' " said Wainwright. What they do have to do with is looking pulled together and cool this coming winter. A shopper in the market for a new coat will have her pick among a snap-front wool tweed with leather patches, a gorgeous black shearling, or one of their best-selling motorcycle jackets, now in new colors like navy. As at other labels, leather is a big story here. Somewhat more surprisingly, so are flowers. An Uzbek coat lining provided inspiration for the floral print; it looked freshest on a flippy mini paired with a chunky cable-knit sweater. A girl can get a lot of mileage out of sweaters like theirs. Same goes for R&B's practical, not precious new bag. It's modeled after a style in which old pilots used to carry their helmets.
12 June 2012
Where India and England intersect was the apparent starting point for the new Rag & Bone show. It didn't necessarily come through in the clothes, but so what? David Neville and Marcus Wainwright's strength as designers is understanding their own here-and-now and the style habits of cool, urban women. It helps that they're married to two of them. Wainwright's wife just gave birth to their third baby this morning (it's a girl!), and she let him leave the hospital for the duo's menswear show at noon—talk about cool. But we digress.Having lived through many New York winters by now, the English expats are well acquainted with the cold. This particular winter has been easy, but the R & B gal will be ready for whatever next December throws her way, because this collection, like all of their Fall outings, was a study in layers: a tile-motif jacket over paisley pajama pants, or a sweater and jacket on top of a draped skirt and slim leggings, with another blazer thrown on for good measure. They weren't shy about mixing herringbone with arrow prints with polka dots with stripes.Outerwear was a strength. Especially a red, army green, tan, and black wool blanket stripe coat and a floral tapestry jacket with fur details (OK, that one put you in mind of the subcontinent). They both added needed jolts of color to a lineup that was predominantly black and white and shades of gray. This collection lacked some of the visual punch of Spring. But there's no arguing with its streetwise vibe, just the way their girls like it.
9 February 2012
The rag-and-bone man is rooted deep in England's past, the wanderer who'd collect people's scrap, alongside the tinker who roamed the land mending their pots 'n' pans. There's often a whiff of such folksy heritage in David Neville and Marcus Wainwright's collections, even if it's as mutated as it was in their latest offering, where one image they had in mind was a granddad of the august Guinness clan, propped up in his country pile surrounded by decayed emblems of empire: tapestries, ikat patterns, ravaged paisleys, old India brought home. Wainwright also mentionedThere Will Be BloodandTrue Grit, invoking the notion of frontier men who ate, slept, and died in their tailored clothes.The worn-out olde-worldiness in all of those ideas is so overpowering that it's to Neville and Wainwright's credit—kudos to the skill of their stylist too—that they managed to spin a contemporary yarn from their source material, helped in no small degree by Thom Yorke's pulsating soundtrack and a filmic backdrop that offered an abstract digital dissection of the Rag & Bone logo. Or maybe the yarn wasn't so much contemporary as it was a romantic take on urban style, incorporating military tradition, workingman's wear, ethnic influences, and hardy frontier clothes into a single multilayered entity. The anchor was spectacular outerwear, from the shearling-collar herringbone coat that opened the show to the sleek melton topcoat that closed it, but the collection's more idiosyncratic charms could be found in the ikat-pattern items and cable knits.It might seem banal at this point to bring up Neville and Wainwright's status as Englishmen in New York, but the outsider's eye is an invaluable asset in design. The burgeoning magpie splendor of Rag & Bone's men's collections is a testament to that fact. Their womenswear? Another story altogether, for another teller.
9 February 2012
Marcus Wainwright and David Neville shot their new lookbook images in front of the door to their Meatpacking District studio. It was a good metaphor for what the season means to them. "No themes for pre-fall; it's just clothes for how our girl really dresses," Wainwright said. And boots, and tie-dyed scarves, and grommeted belts and bracelets. Rag & Bone, as Neville added, "has become a lifestyle brand." It's a lifestyle with a call for leather, for cool tailoring, and, in keeping with their breakout Spring collection and their best-selling jeans, for color.The little leather jacket is a key piece no matter the season. It turned up as a red bomber and as a black motorcycle jacket. The former was worn with drop-crotch shorts and the latter was paired with a tie-dyed, long, pleated chiffon skirt, both of which offered a clue about the ethnic, Indian influences of the Fall collection they'll show in February. OK, so maybe there was a hint of a theme here. Blazers, too, are absolutely de rigueur for the brand, and this season they made them new by adding English military details like the curving seams of tailcoats or contrast bindings. Most of the dresses had a draped, sarilike look, but a structured style in red and blue striped jute linen deserves a callout; it looked particularly adorable with a matching schoolboy blazer.
7 December 2011
By the chorus of "fabulous"-es backstage, you knew that David Neville and Marcus Wainwright had struck a chord. And it wasn't just the music Thom Yorke recorded specifically for the occasion. For the fourth season now, the designers played with a piled-on look, and with references that included seventies surfers, the Glastonbury music festival, and nineties raves, they got the mix mostly right. "Editorial," but also street.Take Fei Fei Sun's opening look. The boxy pantsuit played to Neville and Wainwright's strengths in tailoring. The electric turquoise hooded poncho that she wore under the jacket put them at the forefront of this week's burgeoning sport trend. A sleeveless, white, diagonal-hemmed tunic worn with navy and orange tuxedo track pants was another cool outfit. Bold color, the designers have learned from their denim collection, is a big sell these days, and they're sticking with it.Some of the more densely layered looks—tweedy blazer over long cardigan over parachute skirt, all topping a crochet bra—were too tricky. No one wants to work that hard to get dressed in the morning, do they? And the plastic fabric of a pencil skirt seemed unlikely to lure many customers. But the opposite was true of much of the rest. The patchwork blazers, the space-dyed crochet sweater, a white leather mesh tee and Perfecto jacket—you could picture these flying off the shelves in Rag & Bone's newly expanded location on East Houston Street.
8 September 2011
Though their label began as a mix of Americana-inspired workwear and traditional English tailoring, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have adopted a more-the-merrier approach to influences since. Their recent menswear collections have drawn from various and disparate traditions, sporting to Scottish, military to millennial. This season, they pushed further still. One the one hand, Wainwright explained at their new showroom this week, they were drawn to surfing. ("It's a culture that's very attractive," he explained, while admitting that neither he nor partner David Neville is much of a surfer.) On the other hand, they referenced cholo culture, which grew out of the Latino gang scene of Los Angeles and the southwest.It was the cholos who gave Rag & Bone the giant, diagonally pleated cropped pants that made a curious new addition to their range. The real-life cholos bought their Dickies several sizes too big and folded or belted them into the shape; the label's are sewn in place, for the volume without the uncertainty. Wainwright and Neville aren't the first designers to borrow the style, though you imagine they likely are the first to reimagine the Hawaiian shirt (a surfer staple) in a low-riders, barbed wire, and apartment complexes print. How you feel about that will depend on how open you are to a luxury label lifting street culture emblems for fun and for profit. Likewise the thick-soled slip-ons. "It's thatBoyz N the Hoodlook," Wainwright explained. "A cross between Stubbs & Wootton and cholos."Scattered throughout, whether in surfing looks (with surfboard stripes, lifeguard yellow wax cloth shorts) or cholo styles (with shirts closed at the top and open below), were the kind of tailored pieces that continue to define the brand, whatever the flavor of the season might be. Wainwright spoke of an "element of England," grounding the more out-there looks. And that's just what they'll do. Everyone (or maybe everyonebuta cholo) will warm to a hand-tailored morning coat made at Martin Greenfield's Brooklyn factory. Or the dandy-friendly jacquard suiting, a first for the brand. It came in both blazer and, intriguingly, windbreaker form. "You can imagine Jagger wearing it," Neville piped in. Sartorially speaking, a boy from a slightly nearer hood.
29 June 2011
The recipe for Rag & Bone's success was written all over the Resort collection David Neville and Marcus Wainwright presented in their Meatpacking District studio: cool and, for lack of a better word, career. The cool came in the form of skinny purple jeans stamped with a print the designers made of their poured cement floors—floors, it turns out, that the conceptual artist Matthew Barney once stomped and splattered paint on (the space formerly belonged to him). Denim, of course, is what got Rag & Bone off the ground, and the renewed focus Neville and Marcus have been giving it is paying off.The career part of the story was R&B's skirtsuits. But trust us, there's nothing corporate about their tweeds or windowpane checks. The designers know how to dress down a blazer, and did so here with sheer oxford shirts in white or black with extended hems. In between, there were some great items: a sleeveless, zip-front shift in chestnut leather patched with black, a gray shearling jacket, a black parka with an exuberant but not ostentatious fur-trimmed hood. "This collection is about how our girl dresses," Neville said. It's not just New York girls he was talking about. The designers are shopping around for a new store location in London.
14 June 2011
With their loose braids and bleached brows, and clothes that mixed Inuit costume, traditional tartans, and seventies skiing uniforms, the models on the Rag & Bone runway could've been members of some futuristic tribe, striding along in ribbed leggings and boots with spats to the beat of Thom Yorke's soundtrack. Like last season and the one before that, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright really went for it today. But it's not just the arctic winter we've been experiencing here in New York that made the densely layered and patchworked, more-is-definitely-more aesthetic of the collection look so right.First there was their bold color sense. The show opened with a passage of icy whites and gray, but soon the designers were juxtaposing a vivid sea blue with rusty orange in color-blocked pieces like an apron dress, a toggle coat, and sporty knits. Then there's their habit of rehabbing the fairly conventional—a varsity jacket, a kilt, or a tweed poncho shot through with neon brights—into something genuinely covetable. Some saw shades of Balenciaga in the collection, but many others were won over by the confidence that has a pair of Brits best known for their denim just a few years ago now pairing Prince of Wales check with oversize tartan, or stripes with a delicate mask print.Back, for a moment, to the subject of extreme cold. If there's one thing that could make the idea of another winter as harsh as this one a little less bleak, it's Neville and Wainwright's show-opening gray and burgundy cowhide and leather coat with the furry ivory sleeves. Sold.
10 February 2011
Heritage counts in large amounts for David Neville and Marcus Wainwright. Their new men's collection for Rag & Bone was a veritable orgy of sartorial iconography—from the well-worn (the biker jacket, the varsity jacket) to the less so (the skiing suit, the Lee Rider blanket check). But the ruling icon was the Duke of Windsor. Photographs from the massive catalog for the Sotheby's auction in 1997 of the Duke and his Duchess' possessions helped shape Neville and Wainwright's latest designs. They were particularly inspired by the way the Duke mixed traditions—military, Scottish, hunting, shooting, fishing. And because he was always considered quite a daring dresser, his influence meant there was more of a fashion dandy quotient than usual in the Rag & Bone collection. It was clear from the outset—a red tartan suit over a herringbone waistcoat and checked shirt. That outfit was followed by a quilted shirt jacket in the same herringbone paired with red tartan plus fours, then an ivory tartan jacket with matching kilt and leggings, with each and every look anchored by a gentlemanly cravat and often topped by a droog-y bowler hat. Even though Jon Hamm was backstage saying he'd work a kilt, no problem, we were clearly a long way from Rag & Bone's roots in blue-collar Americana.Artful layering has become a signature of this label (stylist Vanessa Reid has done an excellent job at elaborating on the R&B vision), so there was no sense of bulk in the multiple jacket-on-waistcoat-on-shirt-on-shirt combinations, except when a cropped cable knit was added. There may have been a lot going on, but it was kept easy, almost casual. A softer shoulder and longer silhouette definitely helped. So did the innate sportiness that came from the subtle biker and skiwear touches, like the articulated navy sweater which gave the blanket-check-and-suede kilt it was paired with a real kick. Which suggested that the best approach to the collection might be a skillful dissection, to pare away the more indulgent Windsor-isms and focus on those pieces with appeal for a more contemporary snappy dresser: a cowhide duffel, say, or a fur-trimmed hoodie in an oatmeal knit.
10 February 2011
Leave it toRag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright to make a maxi skirt look effortless and sexy at the same time. The ease came from the stripey T-shirt they paired it with; the sexy was taken care of by the sky-high slit and the strips of leather at the waistband and pockets. "When in doubt, add leather," Wainwright said, explaining that the material sells well for the duo in their own stores (the latest in Tokyo's Omotesando neighborhood) and in their wholesale outlets. That explains the pair of biker jackets, one buff, the other black; a leather sweatshirt that has "hit" written all over it; and the papery leather wrap skirts—a direction the designers hinted they're heading in for Fall. Neville and Wainwright also experimented with denim, a fabric at the core of their five-and-a-half-year-old brand, turning it into a paneled, lightweight skirt.In fact, light might be the defining characteristic of a pre-fall collection they described as "clothes for a downtown girl, for real girls." A striped silk jacket had an almost weightless hand, a T-shirt dress played opaque against sheer, and the open weave of a cardigan sweater, worn tied around the waist as a skirt, exposed a flash of leg. "It delivers in May and June," Neville said. "It's hot; it should be light." Real girls everywhere will thank them.
2 December 2010
Marcus Wainwright's grandfather was stationed in Aden when he was in the military. That chapter of the designer's family history was one inspiration for a Rag & Bone collection that mixed WWII desert rats, North African nomads, and the Wild West into a surprisingly convincing whole. It helped, of course, that traditional Berber stripes look so much like the kind of cotton ticking that we associate with railroad men, especially when cut into a utility jacket. And dusters work equally well in the Sahara or the Sierras. Rag & Bone's denim roots were showing in an indigo suit, a pair of dungarees, a jumpsuit, and a patchworked jacket, the kind of sturdy workwear that made Wainwright and his design partner David Neville's rep, but those pieces now sat alongside a jacket in red silk faille, or a long paisley shirt in the gauzy batiste cotton you'd find in a nightgown (they actually called this item a nightshirt), or a camel leather tank that looked like Celine for boys. That represents progress for the label—if Rag & Bone's clothes always told a story, there are now some curious and seductive new twists to the tale.
9 September 2010
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright are coming off a super-successful season. Their Fall collection was as directional as it was wearable, a hit with editors and buyers alike, and this summer saw them open a new store on Houston Street stocked with their nicely priced not-so-basic basics. No surprise, then, that they were eager, as Wainwright said before the show, to push themselves again. But this time they didn't quite find that sweet spot as reliably as usual.The show started promisingly with a tailored pantsuit (a Rag & Bone specialty) in white broderie anglaise, the sweetness of which was undercut by a harness bra, part of a collaboration with Jean Yu. And other comparatively simple looks followed, including a black blazer worn with a pair of skirts—one chiffon, the other suede—and a boudoir-ish nude and black long slipdress cheekily accessorized with a sporty backpack.Their use of futuristic, military-grade fabrics was compelling (one of the line's starting points, Wainwright said, was pics of his father and grandfather in their military uniforms). But a number of looks were over-styled (an openwork crochet tunic over a sheer tunic in a colorful print, over a contrasting skirt) or left the models overexposed. A see-through top doesn't make a cup-less bra safe for work or the club.Even as Neville and Wainwright have stretched themselves each season, the appeal of this brand has been how strongly tethered to reality it remains, how much it reflects what the cool girls want to look like on their best day. Not enough of this collection met the bar they've set for themselves.
9 September 2010
On the heels of a Fall runway show that garnered the brand its most orders to date, not to mention last night's CFDA Menswear Award win and a pair of New York boutique openings planned for this summer, all eyes are on Rag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright. Their Resort collection showed that they can handle the scrutiny."This isn't about dressing for St. Bart's," Neville said. "It's more of a cool, urban look." The duo emphasized its signature brand of wearable separates and sleek layering. Highlights included a gray-blue silk trench dress, striped mohair sweaters, and a Harris tweed bomber jacket, all of which can be mixed and matched with Rag & Bone's expanding core-basics line of attractively priced shirts and jeans. Coolness can't be bought, of course. But Neville and Wainwright certainly make it easier to look the part.
7 June 2010
Backstage, David Neville said, "It's a pivotal moment for us; it's our first women's show." To be clear, Neville and his partner, Marcus Wainwright, have been designing for women since 2005, but today was the first time the ambitious duo presented the collection on its own—away from their menswear. Maybe it's just coincidence, but it was their strongest effort to date, long on their cool, classic separates; accessorized to the hilt; and full of attitude. They took their inspiration, they explained, from the "crazy English guys who climbed Mount Everest in the twenties in tweed." Up first was a snug gray waistcoat worn over a blue plaid shirt and a densely knit mini kilt. From the model's belt hung three miniature pouches about the right size for an iPhone, a BlackBerry, and a stack of credit cards. The Himalayas by way of the U.K. may've been their starting point, but Neville and Wainwright are nothing if not New Yorkers now, and they know their downtown customer.What'll she be wearing next fall? A green Harris Tweed jacket over a hoodie cardigan and cuffed shorts, or a sweater dress with a white shirtdress, trailing a long scarf and a catch-me-if-you-can air in her wake. For outerwear, it'll be a camouflage anorak, a patchwork plaid poncho, or a waterproof parka with a fur-trimmed hood—Neville and Wainwright are as interested in technical fabrics as ever. As for those accessories, they included (but weren't limited to) bolo ties, backpacks, knit sacks, legwarmers, stack-heel hiking boots, and more of those urban-girl must-have scarves. These two are in peak form.
11 February 2010
Style.com did not review the Fall 2010 menswear collections. Please enjoy the photos, and stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Spring 2011 collections, including reviews of each show by Tim Blanks.
11 February 2010
"Versatility," Marcus Wainwright said, tongue in cheek. "Buy-now-wear-now." He was making light called of what he called the "clichés of the pre-fall season," but in fact, Rag & Bone's latest effort was all about that kind of wearability. Along with his design partner, David Neville, Wainwright focused on interpreting cooler-weather silhouettes in lightweight fabrics. Witness a tailored blazer done in an ultrafine see-through wool and a creamy suede bomber jacket that's virtually weightless. Texture was also important; most garments comprised multiple materials. A black leather tank, for example, featured a sheer jersey back, while a breezy charmeuse frock—printed with a Japanese inkblot motif—had a pleasing hang thanks to cotton lining. "We're not the all-silk-dress type of brand," Wainwright explained. With the recent opening of a third boutique and others potentially in the pipeline for next year, "struggling young designers" is one cliché this duo is happily avoiding.
10 December 2009
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have been in major expansion mode, adding a Soho store to their New York City retail mix, launching sunglasses, growing their accessories collection, and, on top of it all, they both recently became fathers for the second time. Who has time to think about designing clothes? In fact, this season the duo decided against using any tricky themes or making some overwrought reference in favor of going back to their design roots—if a four-and-a-half-year-old label can have them, that is. "With the economy where it is right now, we're focused on what we're about as a company," said Wainwright after the show, "which is our English, military-school heritage mixed with a utilitarian, made-in-America ethos."Simple enough. And that was the strength of this collection: uncomplicated pieces like a cargo-green army parka layered on top of an easy, oversize tuxedo shirt and a little dagger-print skirt; or a gray silk cropped jacket thrown over a couple of drapey cutaway tanks and leather pants that somehow managed to be skinny and slouchy at the same time. You could complain that drop-crotch long johns are a little heavy for spring, but why bother when they look so right? Indeed, by the looks of Rag & Bone's backstage well-wishers—the top brass from Saks, Bergdorf, and Macy's—Neville and Wainwright are definitely onto something with this back-to-basics approach.
10 September 2009
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright decided to skip the storytelling and keep things real for Resort, offering a mix of tailoring—shrunken blazers and biker styles—and lounge-y, tomboyish layering pieces. A pair of made-for-models drop-crotch cashmere thermal leggings had editors cooing, as did the option to wear head-to-toe denim with shirts and jeans made of the stuff. The mood here was softer than that of the samurai-inflected Fall collection and reflective of the pair's careful reconsideration of their DNA and core customer. "She's the type of girl," Neville said, "that you see walking down the street and say, 'Damn, doesn't she look cool.' " These clothes should help her achieve the desired effect.
2 June 2009
A trip to Japan got Marcus Wainwright and David Neville's creative juices flowing. "I've always wanted a samurai sword," enthused Wainwright backstage, "and I've always lovedStar Wars." If not downright dangerous, that's dicey territory to say the least, but their models didn't look like refugees from some George Lucas flick. In shiny crash-proof basket-weave dresses, Loro Piana waterproof wool coats, second-skin ninja trousers, and the occasional chain-mail slip, they were latter-day urban warriors.A suitable image for the economic end-times upon us, yes—and one that gave the designers plenty of opportunity to flex their tailoring chops; to give one example, model Freja Beha Erichsen in a boxy cheviot jacket, waistcoat, and tux shirt over slouchy "haraki" pants (Rag & Bone's answer to the omnipresent dropped-crotch look).The message wasn't entirely postapocalyptic, however. A black wool herringbone tuxedo dress had sex appeal to spare; likewise its more casual cousin, a blue chambray tuxedo shirtdress topped by a narrow gray vest. On the softer, more girlish side, there was a printed silk dress accessorized with an obilike indigo and leather quilted belt, and a skirt in the same fabric topped by a cocoon-y navy kimono cardigan. After last season's dip into England's eighties-pop subcultures, this collection felt a whole lot more modern and vital.
12 February 2009
Don't call it a greatest-hits collection, but David Neville and Marcus Wainwright assembled their most-loved silhouettes for pre-fall. Among the versatile offerings were cropped silk pocket tees, military-inspired vests, and slouchy tuxedo pants straight from the boys' section. The angular, sometimes aggressive tailoring was a carryover from Spring, while experiments with contrasting paneling on minis and peg-leg pants hinted at what we hear is a "techy" Fall lineup.
17 December 2008
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright continue to put down roots here in NYC—the design partners opened their first-ever Rag & Bone store on Christopher Street earlier this week—but for Spring it was their native England that captured the designers' imaginations. Specifically, they took their cues from their birthplace's musical subcultures—punk, mod, ska, etc.—and the uniforms associated with each. On the men's side, it translated quite literally; there were exposed zippers, braces, and precisely cuffed pants. On the women's side, it informed a silhouette: fitted jackets and checked button-downs with matching narrow ties, worn over stovepipe pants tapering to a tight ankle above stacked heels. It also spiked the mood: tough and rough around the edges, thanks to studded cuffs and belts and stringy hair, not to mention the dangerously short hemlines on miniskirts and clingy dresses.There were some great pieces to pull out of the mix—tiny washed-leather jackets, one in black, another in caution yellow; a tweedy pantsuit; the carbon-blue jeans—but the show fell short on a couple of fronts. For one, the British music scene is a favorite point of reference for designers, and even if Neville and Wainwright have more of a right than most to explore it, there's bound to be a sense that it's all been done before. More surprisingly, the fit on one or two of their double-breasted jackets looked off. For a more consistent sense of the good work that this duo is capable of, head first to their new store.
4 September 2008
Having recently seenControl, the biopic of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, Rag & Bone's Marcus Wainwright and David Neville were feeling slightly New Wave for Resort. However, any Debbie Harry references were subtly (and quite wearably) worked in—take, for example, a bright bateau-neck silk blouse and skinny black jeans, or terrific buttery leather jackets with just the faintest whiff of Members Only. The designing Brits continued their lean tailoring in skinny vests and blazers—some cut in a deceptively sharp-looking yet comfortable jersey. The duo also had news to share on the collaboration front: They're working with British glove-maker Dents and Savile Row tailors Norton & Sons and taking a first stab at women's shoes in a flat low boot. More exciting still, all of the above will be available at their first retail store, to open by early fall. Stay tuned.
30 June 2008
"We wanted it to be sharp," said David Neville backstage after the Rag & Bone show, and sharp it was. Girly flourishes have sometimes tempted Neville and his design partner Marcus Wainwright, but they smartly cut out the frills for Fall, working off the twin inspirations ofBlade Runnerand the forties. Suits had a militaristic look, courtesy of jackets with strong shoulders and cutaway lapels, narrow ties clipped to starchy button-downs, and brass buttons with daggers on them.Outerwear, likewise, had a regimental air, be it a charcoal greatcoat or a black toggle jacket with an imposingly chic high collar. Softening all that swagger were jersey jodhpurs or leggings, and items like a long, belted sweater worn over a little mini and tights. And Neville and Wainwright didn't abandon the dress entirely. One short black number came with a stripe of jet crystals down the front and back. Another royal-blue hourglass bustier style had a built-in mesh bodice. But the strongest, like a stark black leather shift, were unadorned. After taking a few cracks at it, they¿ve managed to figure out a way to give the feminine elements of their collection the same edge as their reliably assured tailoring.
31 January 2008
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have mastered the art of the fashion event. Ellen Pompeo, Julianne Moore, and Gisele Bündchen in the front row sparked a pap frenzy. The show ran 45 minutes late (a respectable delay for designers bent on whipping up a frenzy of anticipation). But, whereas in the past their substance struggled to keep up with such a high style quotient, Neville and Wainwright upped their game this season and created clothes that combined wearability with a little conceptual heft.For that we can credit the essential paradox in the collection. Though the clothes had a luxe quality that was new for Rag & Bone, they also suggested times as hard as the neckpiece of tiny, lethal spikes the models—male and female—were wearing. The monochrome palette, the combination of formalwear and utilitywear (most obvious in the vests that sat over coats and jackets), and the military references gave the collection a downbeat edge that was also—a further paradox—oddly romantic. This spirit culminated in a final outfit—an officer's coat over a tuxedo shirt with the collar turned up—that was positively Napoleonic (the styling was a big help). And that wasn't the only period reference: A cutaway gray flannel jacket and a double-breasted waistcoat had an Edwardian tinge. But it's hardly likely that the Rag & Bone man will have that in mind when he responds to a suit with a jacket trimmed in satin, or a cashmere coat in a deep purply-blue tone. He'll just be thinking elegance.
31 January 2008
When they launched their womenswear collection two years ago, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright set out to re-create American classics, but with a luxe, urban sensibility. Since then, they've proven themselves as accomplished tailors with a hip factor that lands starlets like Kate Bosworth and Amanda Peet in their front row. (It doesn't hurt, of course, to have one of the world's top makeup artists, Gucci Westman, for a wife and collaborator, as Neville does.) For Spring, he and Wainwright polished things up a notch without veering too far from their roots, showing an update on the safari jacket paired with tapering pants, a mod-look black shirt worn with high-waisted white tuxedo trousers, and a skinny, boy-for-girl waistcoat that topped a pair of sharp, cropped slacks.Their starting point—"late-sixties and early-seventies James Bond," Wainwright said backstage—added a dose of sex appeal to the collection, most obviously in the form of an Ursula Andress-worthy bikini and an equally revealing leotard. If the designers misstepped, it was with dresses. Familiar shapes like a floaty trapeze frock and a baby-doll smock lacked the subtle subversiveness of the duo's more androgynous looks. Still, there were plenty of pieces for the girl who likes her basics with a toughened-up edge.
4 September 2007
With a CFDA award under their belts and the adoring cheers of a partisan crowd ringing in their ears, Rag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright are clearly on a roll. It's a situation that should quite rightly make them nervous. Still, if this collection was any indication, their response has been safe but sure: Twist the classics, but honor them too. That's how they got away with a bowling shirt that was about as far from Homer Simpson as Uranus. In fact, the menswear in Neville and Wainwright's spring collection starred a couple of shirty revisions: military here, banker's there. That kind of repositioning is emerging as the duo's signature, because they did the same thing with jackets. The basic safari had a certain inevitability, but there was also a glazed cotton blazer/biker jacket hybrid that would be perfect for the weekend warriors who are likely to fall hard for these clothes.All that aside, therewasa smidgen of envelope-pushing. A suit in a sultry gray shantung had a boxy cut that should appeal to latter-day lounge lizards. And the shrunken arms and legs of the closing evening look had a definite Browne flair. But the most appealing element of Rag & Bone's proposition may ultimately be the movie-buff strand that produced a gray pinstripe three-piece over a cashmere Henley. Tuck that next to an average Armani, and you might find yourself pushing Bernardo Bertolucci as a seminal menswear influence.
4 September 2007
It may well be the rolling hills of North Carolina that adorn Rag & Bone's home page, but the candlelit and dry-iced interior of the imposingly domed Gotham Hall suggested that Marcus Wainwright and David Neville had set their sights on a location more distant in time and place this season. Like Lady Chatterley's estate, for instance. Mellors the gamekeeper wouldn't have looked amiss in a black donkey jacket (though the real McCoy would probably have had a poacher's pocket on the inside). And the plaid hacking jacket was suitable garb for rural pursuits. Wainwright and Neville went even further back, to the Georgian sartoria of Beau Brummell, when they offered tidy cutaway jackets or fitted waistcoats with a narrow shawl collar (they called them "Nelson" waistcoats, and they were indeed just like the item sported by the famous admiral).But if all this sounds like rampant historicism, it was counteracted by the little clashes that ultimately characterized the collection: pinstriped tuxedo pants paired with a black leather biker jacket, or one of those cutaways worn with combat pants. And never forget that the Rag & Bone empire is built on jeans, shown here in a panoply of choice, so the label's romantic flights of fancy (as well as its increasingly sophisticated approach to tailoring) are founded firmly on commercial reality.
1 February 2007
David Neville and Marcus Wainwright have been honing denim for five years now, but they're still relative newcomers to women¿s ready-to-wear. This time, they cannily mixed equestrian and military references in with their unstudied-cool signature looks. Their reliably sexy stovepipe jeans, for instance, were paired with assured cutaway jackets and double-belted cardigans with elbow patches. Roomier tuxedo pants, with contrasting stripes, were topped by a boyish vest and crisp button-down, or a smart side-closure jacket that fell capelike to the waist.More girly were the trapeze dresses over skinny pants. While hardly new—Sienna Miller sported the same in the front row—the look was strong: The pants were as thin and easy as leggings, yet scads more chic. The Rag & Bone duo has always had an eye for luxe, but there was a noticeable uptick in their fabrics (especially the tan wool plaid that was cut into a short jacket and a pleated knee-length skirt to open the show). So it was a disappointment to see shoes that were clunky and, in one case, coming apart at the heel. Ultimately, though, they didn't weigh down a confident collection that showed marked strides in cut and fit.
1 February 2007
And then there were two… Marcus Wainwright and David Neville lost founding partner Nathan Bogle in June, which may partially account for Wainwright's admission that this show was the most stressful thing he'd ever done. But to the duo's credit, there was no stress showing in their succinct collection. In fact, it was essential Rag & Bone in its combination of utility and flair. "Made in North Carolina," the business proudly declares, and it was easy to imagine good old country boys in the suspendered indigo jeans paired with a short-sleeved shirt and worn work boots. But you'd need more than that to attract Cameron Diaz, Julianne Moore, and Jimmy Fallon to your front row, or to make the short list for this year's CFDA/VogueFashion Fund. And there was more, in the subtle luxe of the fabrics or the thoughtful detailing (the box pleating that added something of a fifties feel to shirts, the French cuffs, the novel combo of biker and bomber jackets called "the Triumph"). If denim is still their main dish, they're perfecting the seasoning.
9 September 2006
"They make the best jeans. Any denim nerd knows that," said Jimmy Fallon before the Rag & Bone show got underway at the former nightclub, Tunnel. Brits David Neville and Marcus Wainwright—co-founder Nathan Bogle left the company earlier this summer—did show cool stovepipe jeans with equally slim seamed blazers to match. And a smart, charcoal gray twill mac had the punk-rock edge they said they were going for backstage. Pinafore dresses in gauze and silk charmeuse, though, are newer territory for the CFDA/VogueFashion Fund finalists. It may take another season—this is only their third showing women's—before the young designers can say that their girlish frocks boast the fit that their other pieces have become known for.
7 September 2006