Luke Meier appreciates the value of restraint. Whereas some might clamor for unbridled creative freedom, Meier is one designer who finds in discipline an interesting metaphor for creation. “Having a certain capability and boundary on what you do makes you more creative,” he noted during a backstage conversation.
Matthew Barney’s “Drawing Restraint” in part inspired the designer’s exploration of harnesses and hardware. But Meier also said he was drawn to nonlinear thinking, dream logic, and the disjointed Salvador Dalí 1929 film Un Chien Andalou. “Now you get hit with information from all angles, nothing seems linear anymore,” he said. “That’s interesting to think about today. It conjures lightness. It’s a bit twisted.”
It also evokes fashion’s schizophrenic calendar. Which is not to say that Meier is losing the plot personally. For Spring, he offered up a number of appealing options. Coats—billowy or straight, with or without industrial hardware, with some standouts in leather—dominated the lineup, but there were several compelling pieces layered in between, among them a white shirt caged in a mesh overlay, macrotextured diagonal rib-knits (a sweater with an ecru torso and white sleeves), and suits in “pure medical coloring” (i.e., white, beige, and slate, with the occasional detour into salmon, yellow, and bottle green). Back-to-front jumpsuits with harnesses and trousers cropped below the knee looked slightly trickier to pull off.
OAMC’s ongoing partnership with Adidas Originals resulted in several iterations of technical shoes, with a “deliberately artisanal” mixture of materials and colors, while a vulcanized sneaker added a graphic touch without running away with the show.
