One need look no further than Ernest W. Baker's Instagram feed to realize that the newbie label has landed the kind of traction that would make many brands, new or otherwise, green with envy: Pharrell Williams, A$AP Rocky, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Angus Cloud, and Nick and Joe Jonas have all posted pictures of themselves—onstage and off—wearing clothes made by Reid Baker and Ines Amorim.
For fall, the duo continued to hone the “Ernest aesthetic” with a confident collection called—beguilingly for a menswear brand inspired by a beloved grandfather—“Grandma Chic.” The images that might call to mind—a bouclé cardigan jacket that owes a debt to one of fashion's all-time icons, faux leopard print coats and matching ear muffs, handknits and crochets handmade in Portugal—were all present and hybridized into menswear, yet without leaving women behind.
"We wanted to blur the two: women’s meets men’s, men’s meets women’s, so we were looking how the two can influence each other and how they can flow either way," Baker said during a showroom visit. At this point, it’s fair to say that their base likely doesn’t care about parsing the distinction: they’ve got "the classic menswear guy who’s just after a well-fitting suit” covered, for example with a double-breasted suit in checked wool or bouclé pin stripes with gently flared trousers. Meanwhile, a more K-Pop-adjacent client can find, say, gold leather trousers with a matching lamé top and balaclava, black quilted leather with gold studs, or hot pink suiting. Building on pieces from Ssense last year, they also folded in some womenswear, as well as accessories like pompom scarves, quilted leather bags and jewelry.
In a season defined by boundary-pushing, Baker and Amorim made as compelling a case as any. Here’s looking forward to seeing which of their famous fans get on board.
