Shayne Oliver has to be one of fashion’s most elusive characters. Since announcing the relaunch of Hood by Air in 2020, the designer has been teasing a number of projects: First was “Prologue,” the HBA capsule modeled by Naomi Campbell; then came a preview of his eponymous ready-to-wear label at New York Fashion Week in February of last year, followed by Anonymous Club, the creative studio/fashion label/talent incubator he formally introduced last year. Coming soon is an art exhibition in Berlin, where he recently moved. These projects have neither a defined cadence nor abide by industry schedules (their calendar is “undefined,” in Olvier’s words). They arrive when Oliver is ready.
A year after its first drop, Oliver is back with the second installment of Anonymous Club, and with it some newfound structure. When we spoke over the phone about this collection, Oliver said he realized he needed to give “more definition” to Anonymous Club in order to make space for people to participate in it. “I’m working to create more clarity, that’s part of what this campaign is about,” he said. He was referring both to this lookbook, which features the designer Stefano Pilati, and to a campaign the label dropped last week on Instagram, which stars Telfar Clemens, Raul Lopez, and Patia Borja, who also appear in this slideshow as cutouts. “Anonymous Club is about friendship and camaraderie with people that share like-minded ideas,” Oliver said, explaining that itt differs from his eponymous label in that it is a collaborative space and a potential launching point for concepts, next-gen creatives, and more.
The lineup itself is a tightly edited collection of staples with the Shayne Oliver twist in a limited color palette consisting of black, beige, and neon green (plus clear vinyl). There’s the pagoda shoulders Oliver often presented at Hood by Air, his usual club-ready leather jackets and trousers, and a run of oversized utility jackets. More interesting are a t-shirt with its shoulders raised to hide the neck but sloped to the regular shoulder apex, and a flared skirt with two jacket sleeves as part of the front drape. To Oliver’s credit, as pervasive as the Hood by Air aesthetic he and Lopez introduced a decade ago is today, his clothes are imbued with a certain authenticity. Sometimes there’s nothing like the source.
The show-stealer in this lookbook is a three-headed chihuahua, a reference to Cerberus, the hound of Hades in Greek mythology that guards the gates of the Underworld. Oliver explains it came from a dark place: Back in the HBA days, he felt in need of a watchdog to look over ideas and protect the “naive period in the creative process.” He feels similarly about Anonymous Club now. “Sometimes some aspects of things need to be protected for it to blossom into something,” he explained.
It’s been close to 10 years since Hood by Air’s first-ever runway show for the spring 2014 menswear season. Hindsight is a powerful thing, and while some of us see the Hood by Air effect on design or even casting, Oliver sees it in the way his work has been consumed and understood. “There tends to be a way people dissect what I’ve done in the past, where because there was a collaborative spirit, the material came off as if it wasn’t a personal conversation and it wasn’t my story,” he said. Because there was no defined language around the aesthetic at the time, Oliver explains, his work was evaluated as being a part of a cultural movement or the epitome of a vernacular belonging to a subculture, rather than as a personal statement. He is breaking away from group thinking with the Shayne Oliver label, while stepping into the role of mentor through Anonymous Club. Oliver has realized that he can have his cake and eat it too, as long as there’s a structure that supports both channels, which Hood by Air lacked.
I asked Oliver to comment on HBA’s impact 10 years later. He offered two takeaways. First, he’s ready to be more selfish with his creativity, which these separate projects allow. Second, he has more to offer: “It’s hard to be reflective when you’re still in the space of your activity, but I’m ready to create more guidance.” My takeaway: You could say Shayne Oliver is now his very own Cerberus.
