Designers often use music as an inspiration. This season, Andre Walker’s collection riffed on a single song: Althea & Donna’s 1977 reggae classic, “Uptown Top Ranking.” At an appointment this afternoon, Walker said he’d always wanted to do a “thesis” on that track—a really, truly terrific one, if you’ve never heard it—and explained that he’d dug into its lyrics to further his brainstorming. “Dem check sey we hip”—Walker’s check came in linen, and looked plenty hip in garments such as his short-sleeved tailored jacket, with its folded-under “blurred” hem. “See me in a halter back . . . give you a heart attack”—Walker’s funnel-neck halter-tops were sui generis, in particular coming in a cotton print of head sculptures by his friend and frequent collaborator Sylvie Auvray. He did his own versions of the song’s khaki suit, too, albeit in dove gray.
Walker’s (admittedly casual) research extended beyond the lyrics of “Uptown Top Ranking.” He also asked his parents what had been going on in Kingston, Jamaica, around the time the track was recorded. They told him that denizens of the “uptown” area of the city had marked off their territory as a posh one, and taken to natty dressing to suit the attitude. One of the charms of Walker’s collection was that it got at that nattiness—note his pencil skirts, cape-shouldered jacket tops, and precise tailored dresses, with their cutout sides—while simultaneously summoning the chillaxed vibe of the song that had inspired him. Mesh-like pointelle knits and a generous helping of fishnet provided the collection with some breeziness, both literally and figuratively, while skirts cut to suggest the look of shorts or slouchy trousers introduced another kind of casual mien. Much of Walker’s focus here was on fuzzing the hard edges of his silhouettes, as witnessed in that “blurred” hem jacket, for instance, but also in standout garments like his layered gray eyelet and white fishnet pencil skirt, and a cropped jacket with soft vertical pleats in the front. Perhaps that instinct to soften was another tribute to Althea & Donna—after all, the most famous lyrics in their one big hit go, “Love is all I bring.” And this collection certainly felt open-hearted.
