Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor did not show this season’s collection on the runway because they plan—fingers crossed—to join the couture schedule in January. That decision left team Aganovich with some spare creative calories to play with.
How did they choose to burn them? First, the collection itself, which was inspired by the corkscrew perspectives of Francis Bacon. Trenchcoats that were, in fact, cloaks with trompe l’oeil arms (a compulsive shoulder robe wearer’s dream) and pink shirts disjunctively draped with black ties incorporated to emerge halfway around the neck and directly through the collar were just two examples of Aganovich’s easy-to-wear but hard-not-to-look-twice-at practice.
Without that show, though, there was still room for four other projects. In their truly lovely Bastille work space—all books, dogs, beautiful windows, and good tunes—hung a rack of sturdy patch-pocketed work jackets that were cut by Aganovich in Italian non-GM cotton drill woven by Bonotto in Italy and sewn by Bocage Avenir, a cooperative of seamstresses near Nantes. They plan to sell them via Kickstarter—and I plan to buy one. Project two was a T-shirt line—some of them double-face to give the effect of layering—produced with Dov Charney (yes, that Dov Charney), who post–American Apparel has started a new made-in-USA project that he named Los Angeles Apparel. Project three was a new perfume, named Let’s Murder the Moonshine, after the writing of F.T. Marinetti, which Nana said—only half-jokingly—was “meant to smell like a burning paint factory.” Thanks to the expertise of perfumer Arnaud Poulain, it smelled moreish rather than toxic. Finally, there were some completely loopy neckties made of combed linen that closely resembled human hair tied into braids—quite funny. The Aganovich crew references anarchism quite a lot, which is a little rich when you’re heading to couture—and yet their sincerity is evident as is their skill. And seriously, check out the Kickstarter jackets. They’re a bargain and beautiful, too.
