One of the strengths of the Landeros New York AW2015 collection was that you saw the clothes first: strong exaggerated silhouettes echoing the 1980s album art and music culture of goth and New Wave. Only gradually did you begin to perceive the gender of the models, thereby heightening your appreciation for the manner in which designer Andre Landeros Michel’s sartorial sleight of hand had rendered gender as fluid as fabric. In other words, you saw individuality before male or female.
That’s not as easy to accomplish as it sounds. Our senses are conditioned to perceive gender cues from first glimpse. The sound of a voice, the manner of movement – and we read gender. With his Version II collection for Landeros New York A/W 2015, Michel built upon his signature aesthetic of nocturnal nightlife romance and the use of atypical materials such as high-density neoprene to create a completely contemporary collection notable for its structured lines and striking glamour.
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Founded in 2013 by Michel, Landeros New York derives inspiration from the music of the designer’s youth, specifically goth, punk, industrial, and New Wave. A graduate of Parsons School of Design in Fashion Design who interned for Thom Browne, Michel presented his inaugural Landeros New York collection during New York Fashion Week in 2014.
Version II for A/W 2015 drew inspiration from the Eighties band Scritti Politti, as well as artist Dan Flavin and the fashion illustrator Tony Viramontes whose work during the 1980s helped define the era’s signature silhouette (think Janet Jackson’s “Control” album art). Working with a broad range of materials from neoprene, leather and fur, as well as silk organza and cashmere, Michel’s Version II posited a 21st-century equivalent to Viramontes’ strikingly bold images of smoldering, smoky-eyed iconoclasts.
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One of Viramontes’ virtues as an artist was his ability to expand the boundaries of masculine identity. His images of sensuous feline men marked by aloofness and insolence combined with the swagger of confidence define a musical era embodied by figures such as Billy Idol, Adam Ant, Bryan Ferry, and Prince. Version II by Landeros New York captures the electricity of street theatre that made the sidewalks of New York the catwalks of fashion.
Previously, Michel has cited German performance artist Joseph Beuys as an influence for his “severity and rigidity and his color palette [of] charcoal grays.” Beuys frequently employed stiff wool fabric, a utilitarian fabric associated with factory workers. Michel has said, “I’m doing a luxe version of the factory workers,” albeit one that enables men to discard the more traditional uniforms associated with masculinity. With the use of nontraditional materials in his exploration of male identity, Landeros New York blurs the boundaries of gender, thereby allowing each piece to become imbued with individualism.
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Unveiled in a presentation at Scandinavia House during New York Fashion Week, the statement pieces in the Landeros New York Version II collection were produced by a combination of machine and hand sewing. In keeping with the collection’s aesthetic, footwear came from TUK, the Southern California label founded in 1991 with its own strong background in music and band culture. Neck collars of recycled silver with signature nail and clasp details were created in collaboration with Mike Årsjö and Emelica Lidman, the artist duo behind MURKY.
Michel’s initial foray into New York design was a collection of clutches and bags sold at Oak in New York City. Handcrafted in Sweden, The Restraint Collection drew upon Michel’s love for leather and fetishwear. With a wink and a nod to bondage and S&M, the edgy collection sold out for Holiday 2012 at Oak NYC.
Dark and structured, with a core of romance, Version II by Landeros New York reinterprets a dynamic subculture for 2015.
