You have to give AG some props for shaking up the denim presentation formula. Instead of showing the new collection on racks in a showroom, Johnathan Crocker and his team rented out the A-1 Record Shop in the East Village. Models in AG’s new jeans and suede jackets flipped through records and ate old-school snacks like Ring Pops and Twinkies—so convincingly, in fact, that at first you didn’t realize they weren’t real customers. Maybe it was the slightly grunge vibe of their clothes—slashed jeans, plaid flannels, holey cardigans—but the girls and guys blended right in.
The ’90s have been trending on the runways for quite some time, but AG had some new ideas about the decade’s key looks. For starters, they introduced new resin-rinse jeans that had the look of crispy, ultra-stiff raw denim, but were actually soft and lightweight. Why go through the painful break-in process of dry, raw denim when you can just buy these? (True obsessives will say it’s a point of pride, but ouch!) The button-front cropped jeans will be a big hit, and the cute topstitched resin shirtdress will be hard to find elsewhere.
Raw jeans are as old school as it gets, but AG is doing its part to keep novelty denim alive, too. This season’s take on the pieced-together jean had multiple seams going up the front and back of the legs, raw hems, and a super-high rise. A few other pairs had giant bees embroidered on the coin pocket, a timely detail that will get plenty of denimheads to justify yet another pair of blue jeans.
