Since founding BLK DNM back in 2011, Johan Lindeberg became completely synonymous with the label, more a face of it than he was in his previous tenures at Diesel and even his eponymous brand. He shot its campaigns on a coterie of model friends like Anja Rubik and Caroline de Maigret (often spotted in the clothes IRL, too) and generally served as a man-about-town ambassador for all things BLK DNM. So when the news broke quietly in May that Lindeberg would be parting ways with the company, it was hard to imagine what might come next.
Only time will tell, but Spring '16, his final collection, served as a distillation of Lindeberg's many rock-and-roll preoccupations: a goat-suede collarless shirt befitting the Lizard King himself, Jim Morrison; an Easy Rider fringed jacket; punky Perfecto-esque numbers à la the Ramones. They're all codes that the designer has plumbed and perfected over the past four years and that draw a steady stream of customers to BLK DNM's Lafayette Street digs in NYC. Impeccably rendered rocker basics—many of them unisex—they come in a pared-back palette, all play nicely together, and are utterly easy to shop.
But Lindeberg is also a man of serious creative appetites, so there was a lot of compelling newness, too. Cases in point: a bomber in patchworked tonal blue suede and a tuxedo in inky, raw Japanese denim. Pieces like those should prove a winning foundation for Lindeberg's still-to-be-named successor to build on.
