The Area show brought New York Fashion Week briefly to life last night. A pall of dour sameness has fallen over the week’s shows. Designers can hardly be blamed. The Saks bankruptcy has put many small brands in jeopardy, and other forces much larger than fashion are making for a bleak outlook.
Enter Nicholas Aburn. The new creative director at Area had a buzzy debut last season. He hails from Demna’s Balenciaga, and he brought some Paris sizzle to a morning show that had the feel of a party. What stood out was his range—from jeans to gala dresses—and the playful ingenuity he brought to all of it. Here was a guy who put a premium on experimentation, creativity, and fun.
Chatting about season number two in his studio earlier this week, he said, “I wanted to make it about the good feeling of when you feel confident about how you’re dressed. I use the word glamour a lot, I think it’s about taking agency and not feeling bad about it.” He went on: “Glamour is a word that used to mean magic. When a woman used the way she looked for power, they said ‘witch!’ ‘Magic!’ And that’s how glamour came to mean mastery over the way you look.”
Like last time, Aburn magicked glamour into the low and high, twisting a bow into a dark rinse denim mini worn with a back-to-front polo, and torquing a sweatshirt hoodie into a wrap skirt flashing lots of leg. Oversize tailored coats were designed with even more oversized martingales that will practically invite sidewalk and subway collisions. Aburn likes the confidence and swagger of big clothes. But there were little ones here too; Area is a brand known for party wear after all. A few of the looks consisted of not much more than zippy vintage silk scarves he sourced and tacked together to lightly drape across the torso. Others, with their ruches and ruffles in jewel tone lamés, were dead ringers for the 1980s fashions pinned to his moodboard.
A pair of evening dresses at the end were a paean to Nicolas Ghesquière-era Balenciaga Jennifer Connelly wore one to the Met Gala in 2005. Where Ghesquière’s were decorated with a spray of feathers, gazar, and organdy, Aburn’s were ingeniously embellished with bits and bobs that looked like they could’ve been shredded terry cloth. If that’s too subtle a reference, he also did separates with sequins arrayed to depict AI-generated faces. Dark times or no, Aburn makes clothes that go pop.
