During a church-hushed backstage convo pre-show, Kiko Kostadinov eventually ventured that the starting point for this collection was his viewing of the Kentucky Derby episode of 7 Days Out. “They spend a year in intense preparation for an event that takes just a few minutes,” he said of the Netflix documentary. “And that reminded me of the fashion industry.”
The agonized packing of great emotional and intellectual effort into a gesture that lasts for just a few minutes is indeed a caterpillar-to-moth-like bananas activity. But there was great value in Kostadinov’s fleeting riff on equestrian wear. It looked like he had also watched The Favourite, whose Regency tailoring—the source of ridingwear as menswear archetype—permeated his topcoats and slightly dubiously dreadlocked wigs. From that earliest expression—the starting gun—this collection relaxed into subversive rewrites of fabric-layered jockey’s colors and faux-pocketed mohair wool riding suits through to totally contemporary synthetic pieces strafed by the colorful emblems of imaginary trainers. The tricolor Camper boots and eye-wateringly paneled Asics sneaks raced him across the line in terms of total look commitment, via a connecting membrane of pulsating violent-color steeplechase socks. Underneath all of the incongruous tonality—look at the two black-on-black nylon looks near the final straight for confirmation—were some stupendous sportswear pieces. This was a designer galloping gleefully to his own rhythm at a glorious pace, with no thought for the race unfolding around him.
