In the late ’90s, Nili Lotan spent a few years working on the design team at Ralph Lauren. Despite being raised outside of the United States, her tenure at the Polo stomping grounds gave her a great understanding of and appreciation for American fashion. She is a minimalist designer with cowboys and prepsters forever ingrained in her creative psyche. This season, she decided to pull some of those Western influences from her internal archive. The resulting collection nods to images of the Marlboro Man and Mr. Lauren himself, with tweed blazers, denim-on-denim looks, and a new suede version of her fringe jacket. Despite the more apparent references to American rodeo culture, Lotan was careful not to go too far down that horse track. In an effort to stay true to her roots, she photographed some of the more Americana-leaning pieces at a Bedouin tribe in the desert of Israel, her home country. The rest of the lineup was shot on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side.
Lotan named this collection The Wild Wild East, and it is a seamless blend of both her worlds. The white silk suit with pant legs tucked into cowboy boots was among the best examples of Lotan’s cultural hybridizing, as was a caramel-color velvet trouser worn with a simple black button-down shirt. Overall, the clothes felt personal and smart in the way that they were executed. Often a designer will overdo a Western theme and the result will be something that is more costume than wearable clothing. Lotan takes care with her design process and that strategy came through well here. The clothes spoke to her journey between East and West and, even better, they made Americana seem like a new idea again.
