It was 2 p.m. on a Saturday at a venue in the shadow of the United Nations, of all places, and the crystal bra tops, HotPants and minidresses were out in full force.
Piotrek Panszczyk and Beckett Fogg’s Area has become a buzzy show all right. The brand is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and it’s going global. Blackpink’s Lisa has been wearing it on tour (“I didn’t even have to do custom, she bought it all,” Panszczyk said), opening up the Asian market, and the Middle East is picking it up, too, adding to a roster of retail accounts in the U.S., including Nordstrom and Fwrd, as well as e-comm players like Mytheresa and Matchesfashion.
With last season’s runway, Panszczyk pushed beyond crystal decoration into more conceptual fashion and for spring (he’s on the see-now, buy-now schedule), he upped the ante once again with handcraft on sculptural pieces inspired by fabulous fruits “and their sometimes loaded history,” he said.
“We really stretched what we are capable of and where these references come from…like how can something sophisticated and elegant but funny live in the same world?” the designer asked.
On the Area runway, apparently. Josephine Baker’s famous banana belt inspired an ombré denim 3D banana bunches bustier top and skirt finished with metal caps. Andy Warhol’s “Velvet Underground” album cover and the Guerrilla Girls’ feminist response informed a decaying banana beaded top and mini. And classical couture, with a nod to Schiaparelli perhaps, inspired conceptual yet elegant looks such as a black velvet pyramid gown resembling a banana tree.
There’s often something sinister behind Area’s collections, too, and this season it was an obsession with rot that inspired the buzzing soundtrack, fruit fly jewelry and embellishments on tuxedo dressing, and the jet black metal and crystal grape bunches on collars and in the hip swags of a denim “fruit basket” gown.
“Officially, this year is going to be 10 years, not that we’re oldies, but a lot of our clients grow with us,” the designer said of reflecting on the idea of aging. “We have a lot of women who are dentists, plastic surgeons, and we have one professor in Memphis who is bonkers, she only wears crystal dresses with lingerie underneath. It’s women who work for themselves and the way they treat their beauty and their bodies is on their own terms. Those are the women attracted to our stuff. At the end, our collections are so thematic, everyone can spin their own reality,” he said.
(Side note, it would amazing to see the Area archives in an exhibition for the anniversary.)
For those looking for something new a shade closer to reality, or maybe just something they can sit in, there were black crystal-trimmed va-va-voom gowns, scattered grape motif lace catsuits, ombré nylon dolphin shorts and windbreakers. And for just a walk on the wild side, Area has a capsule collection of feathery, jeweled shoes in collaboration with Sergio Rossi.
