Ask Billy Reid, who this year celebrates his 20th anniversary as a designer, about career milestones and he’s as likely to mention community and charity as he is his three CFDA award wins (including the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund of 2010), 12 stores nationwide, and too many to count celebrity dressing ops. He will also surely, in his signature drawl, expound on Shindig, his annual festival of music, food, and, of course, fashion in his hometown of Florence, Alabama, “a bastion of open-mindedness,” as he describes it. When it isn’t Shindig season, he’ll stage his collection—mostly men’s, but with a growing women’s category—during New York men’s week. That, however, was not the case for Spring 2019. One had to head south, as this reviewer did, to catch it in its natural setting.
By now, Reid’s image—that of the down-home bon vivant, buttoned-up bumpkin, seersucker sophisticate—is well burnished. Over the years, he’s cultivated a hybrid American look all his own, characterized by slightly rumpled casual suits for him and loose tunic-based dresses for her, primarily in a country-approved palette of earth and water hues. Unusual, artisanal textile development is always paramount. For Spring, shown under colossal ceiling fans in a gutted downtown Florence space, a vibrant feather-printed caftan was the clear standout, inspired by Native American influences of the Florida panhandle. Reid also alluded to a suede duster, a burlap-looking netted sarong, and a gold chain-stitched dress—already sold out, he said—as favorites. As for gents, a knitted navy suit and a translucent trench count as standouts. Luxurious bags and totes were crafted in a family-run factory in Tennessee, while sneakers worn by every model—all of them friends or employees of the label—were made from wild alligator, as part of a sustained-use, zero-waste management program with the state of Louisiana. Later, Reid spoke of his ongoing mission to use locally grown organic cotton, essentially taking it from field to rack, to supplement the Italian, French, and Japanese fabrics he currently sources.
If conveying a sense of authenticity is the goal of Shindig, and certainly it is, perhaps nothing served up more of the stuff than a live set by Candi Staton, famed soul singer (who also had a disco hit with “Young Hearts Run Free”), as the show’s musical backdrop. Her backup band, David Hood and the Swampers, are equally famed in these parts, having produced or performed with everyone from Aretha Franklin and Willie Nelson to Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens in neighboring Muscle Shoals, a recording hub most active in the ’60s and ’70s. In other music news, Reid managed to get his old pal Kacey Musgraves to perform an intimate set at Shoals Theatre, where the country-pop chanteuse, in full rhinestone regalia, chirped her progressive-twang hit “Follow Your Arrow” (“Kiss lots of boys, kiss lots of girls, if that’s what you’re into”)—a natural fit with Reid’s own heart-and-soul messaging.
