I’ve always found deconstructionist and gender-fluid styles captivating. Therefore, Hood By Air’s spring 2016 ready-to-wear show drew my attention instantly. Shane Oliver, HBA’s creative director and founder, is one of the few designers who has been able to grow their brand and its reputation to an extent such as this. Now a welcomed addition to New York Fashion Week, Oliver’s company had its humble beginnings. The brand started in 2006, selling skate-inspired streetwear out of basements in various parts of New York City. HBA wasn’t about fashion then; it was about belonging.
This collection was inspired by Oliver’s contradictory childhood in the Caribbean. He and his peers received exemplary education while living in poor conditions. Oliver and his classmates’ response to this subjection of the idea of a better life while going home to their reality was to rebel in the only way they really could: taking scissors to their uniforms. These rebellious schoolyard antics are obvious seen through the collection: zippers and ties barely holding garments together, cutouts in irregular places, etc. Even the makeup demonstrates both contradiction and rebellion (this time in terms of fashion) as the models strut down the runway with pre-blended contour faces.
Bondage is also a prevalent theme in this collection, whether it’s the lace-up sandals, the clutches that seem to bond the models’ hands together or the diagonal X-shaped drapery across the models’ torsos that seems to imply a feeling of trapped containment.
The final look drew me in the most, with the female model’s bare breasts contained by a bondage-inspired harness. The idea of Oliver’s elite schooling “trapping” him as he could do nothing with it is such a beautifully raw emotion. The predominately monochromatic feel to the collection was also something I wanted to emulate.
For this runway to hallway look, I chose a white bondage top, harness-style shorts and white, netted biking shorts, all created by the now-defunct brand Bitching and Junkfood. I felt this look definitely best represented Oliver’s feelings of societal and educational entrapment while still being wearable. I wore Jeffrey Campbell open-toed buckled platforms for a similar purpose: Garments that represented constraint of the body would be both wearable yet true to the inspiration of the collection. Lastly, I finished my monochromatic look off with a black shoulder bag covered in zippers, much like some of HBA’s designs.
There are only three aspects of my attire that weren’t black and white: my hair color, my light denim shorts and my toenail polish. These were actually very deliberate decisions. My hair, a mix of tonal blues, serves to represent the denim portion of the collection, as do my shorts. My toenails, a pinkish-lavender, was chosen very specifically as it closely matches some of the pale pinks featured in the collection.
Get My Look: 1. Lace-up shoes. 2. Body harness top or bra. 3. Bucket bag. 4. Lavender-pink nail polish.
