You could say the emerging label John Elliott + Co, co-founded by the namesake designer and his business partner, Aaron Lavee, is really finding its feet. The duo behind the athletic-conceptual hybrid presented a limited yet impressive collection today, one with an unusual starting point—a marathon through Vietnam.
Despite a nettlesome visa issue he'd rather not dwell on, and the occasional gust of smog, Elliott and a member of the team ran through country and city alike, stretching from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Their 11-day trek informed the ultra-lean silhouettes in nylon and mesh, among other tech and/or thermal fabrics, as well as a tone-on-tone palette of stone, charcoal, olive, and navy—not the cliché tropical colors one might expect.
Models with exaggeratedly sweaty faces dashed back and forth to frenetic music Elliott sampled from videos he took at traffic stops along the journey. In pieces that had been deliberately faded and expertly layered, they became exquisite blurs of their former selves. This was a runaway hit, to be sure.
