NYFW Reviews: Opening Ceremony Made Us Bust a Nut

Fashion Week has hit New York City again, and big, fancy designers are showing their latest collections for spring / summer 2014. So, we went to a few shows to figure out what all the Tumblr goofballs, twinks and trust-funders will be wearing when it's nice outside again. Enjoy!

At this point, everybody on the internet has already slobbed on Humberto Leon and Carol Lim's knobs for the amazing presentation they put together for Opening Ceremony's first ever runway show. So, I'm not going to bore you talking about the dope-ass clothes or the killer cars or Rihanna. The reason the OC show was the highlight of my NYFW experience was because it's the only one that got my rocks off.

You get all kinds of free stuff at fashion shows, and most of it is useless. This year, I got some nail polish, a pair of sunglasses that I regrettably lost and a nifty key chain. But none of that swag even came close to the self-pleasuring device gifted to me by OC. The vacuum cup designed by Tenga with the sweet psychedelic packaging inspired by OC's latest collection was exactly what the doctor ordered after a long week of fashion-model-induced blue balls. I'm a creature of habit, so I've been spanking my monkey the same way for the past 20-odd years. But now that I've had the pleasure of ejaculating into an oblong plastic tube with squishy cold stuff inside and a fancy designer label on the outside, I must say I am never going back. I'll be copping handfuls of OC-branded Tengas every time my girl goes on family vacation or I just need some "me time". Thank you, OC, for being amazing and giving me something that I'll remember long after all of the other brand's collections fade in my memory – a toe-curling nut buster.

—By Wilbert L. Cooper

JUNK FOOD VINTAGE NFL CURATED BY KRISTIN CAVALLARI

“Confusing” doesn’t even begin to describe a collection of “NFL vintage” by a brand called Junk Food, curated by the (recently arrested) Kristin Cavallari. But here’s everything I witnessed within five minutes of walking into this carnival show: three break-dancing teenagers, a bitchy cat in a photo booth licking “gourmet cat food” from a silver spoon, an obscenely large disco ball and a veritable tsunami of leopard-print skirts. And that’s just what was happening on the sidelines. The crowd was a teeming mass of bottle-blonde The Hills rejects and potbellied creeps waiting anxiously for the kickoff. And when the clothes actually came streaming down the runway – well, let’s just say that the only person who could work cropped jersey sweaters with glittery sleeves and golden-chain belts is Peyton Manning in drag.

—By Michelle Lhooq

PUBLIC SCHOOL

What a strange crowd. Over half the attendees who showed up didn’t look like they belonged there. Did they even know what Public School was? I sure do, and think it's how a fashionable man should dress every day. Neutral colors and simple silhouettes are the way to go if you are a guy. The two-toned, black-and-white sneakers were the jam, too. Oh, and the model selection was impeccable. The group of models at this show was the best I’ve seen all fashion week. The women who came were just gawking at all the hot guys the whole time, but so was I, so I can’t hate.

—By Miyako Bellizzi

ROBERT GELLER

When I grow up, I want to be like Robert Geller – he’s got a gorgeous wife, he’s super talented and he’s always the smartest dude in the room. Every time I go to one of his shows, I have to go home and do extensive googling to learn about the high-art and subversive allusions he instills in his garments. Weird shit about Russian cubists and constructivists just rolls off his tongue and leaves me puzzled and grappling for a textbook. This time around, Geller broke me and a crowd full of eager men’s fashion nerds off with a taste of new wave and punk style via Moscow’s youth during the 1980s. I’m still trying to track down the music he played throughout the show, which sounded like Suicide, DNA and Television had an orgy and gave birth to a noisy, snotty, sonic bastard. With the clothes, Geller somehow managed to make neoprene look tough, using it on collars, shorts and vests. And I am definitely planning on getting my hand on the brimless Laszlo hats, which were sported in most of the looks, because it’s kind of like a cross between a bad-ass military beret and a baseball cap – two things I love dearly.

—By Wilbert L. Cooper

HOOD BY AIR

Hood By Air is the Odd Future of the clothing game. HBA, like OF, came from a very authentic time and place, birthed out of genuine affection for their respective craft. Yet, neither should be held accountable for the prepubescent keyboard gangsters who tarnish their reputation. Hood By Air's appeal might not be clear to old-heads, and I can get that, but there's definitely not enough grounds for all the arrogant dismissal the brand gets. For spring / summer 2014,  Marilyn Manson replaced Sinéad O'Connor on its portrait shirt and was paired with beaded necklaces and snowboard boots. The show had the amount of ridiculousness that you come to expect from the brand. Shayne Oliver didn't need to send 20-plus looks down the runway this season, he didn't need Yeezus to grace us with his presence and he definitely didn't need to score it with a very goth Sade mix. But I'm glad he did.

—By Bobby Viteri

ALEXANDER WANG

Chicks love Alexander Wang, because he knows what he’s doing. Before the show started, he got all the girls primed and ready playing lady-bait like Mary J Blige, Aaliyah and TLC. Then the models took to the runway, which was a convoluted path that snaked around the audience inside of the cavernous pier where the show was held. The looks were really hot, and proved that Wang is going headfirst into the overt-branding trend that is being picked up by quite a few high-end designers right now. Most of the standout looks were plastered with Wang’s name in repeating, delirious patterns. I definitely dug it, if only because I am a child of gaudy, ostentatious, 90s-era hip-hop and R&B – the kind of music Wang played at the show’s outset. Sure, it’s a little tacky having someone else’s name all over your body like you’re a fucking billboard. But if you do it with the right designer, and Alexander Wang is definitely a good one, no one will ever know how broke you are because they’ll see you wearing expensive shit. Fake it until you make it!

—By Wilbert L. Cooper

TELFAR

Taking a minimal approach in any medium can be polarising. People will either revere your genius or shit on you for being lazy. I guess I'm in the latter camp, because when I saw the look above, all I could think was, 'Where is this dude's trousers? Like, this is a fashion show, where are the clothes?' Some dudes were barefoot, some were only wearing aprons and one guy was even sporting a halter-top Darth Maul look. I get that Telfar's thing is exploring pansexuality, but compared to the gender-bending of Hood By Air, this shit was straight boring. Telfar, next time you have a fashion show, actually make some fashion.

—By Bobby Viteri

PATRIK ERVELL

We’ve been dick-riding Patrik Ervell for years now, so you already know what we’re about to say. This collection was amazing and he is the best and you should go out and sell drugs or rob old people or invest in stocks so you can afford his shit. This time around, like Robert Geller, he incorporated neoprene into his collection. Patrik doesn’t really do themes, because real men don’t play dress up. But this collection did have a nautical, sailing vibe. I don’t really fuck with the water all like that – I almost drowned once when I was a little kid because I got cramps from eating ice cream before I went in the pool – but I would totally sit on a boat or on the shore wearing these new digs.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           —By Wilbert L. Cooper

HARLEM'S FASHION ROW

When I first got to this function, I was hyped on seeing some gritty-but-fashion-forward stuff. Instead, it felt like I went to church. First off, the show started an hour late, which made it very apparent that the few in attendance had nowhere else to be – the first clear sign that this was an amateur event. Strike one. When they finally got around to dimming the lights of the Jazz Centre, which usually seats about 500, it was still at about 50 percent capacity. Runway shows are generally jam-packed with press, friends of the designer and friend's of friends. It's generally taboo to have an empty seat in the house, but somehow these four designers couldn't manage to scrape together a couple hundred people who were willing to come see their latest offering. That's pretty sad because I've been to some punk shows that have more people in attendance. Strike two. None of the four designers were from Harlem, so that doesn’t really make it Harlem’s Fashion Row, does it? The programme pamphlet, which tells you all the necessaries, had low-res advertisements and poor editing. The "models" were probably picked off the street and were dying inside when they had to awkwardly make applause cues way after the audience stopped clapping. One designer made it very clear that his collection's main inspiration was Bushwick, Brooklyn, even though I’ve never, in my life, seen anyone wearing a see-through muscle shirt and snapback-fez anywhere near there. It was very clear that everyone involved dropped the ball that night. Which, all things considered, is a collective strike three.

—By Bobby Viteri

MARK McNAIRY

I’m from Cleveland, which is in northern Ohio. But in my early 20s, I went to college in Appalachia, Ohio, in a town called Athens. Athens wasn’t so bad ’cause it was propped up by the money and liberal ideologies of the students and the teachers, but the surrounding areas were straight hillbilly territory. Leaving the campus felt like walking into that banjo scene in Deliverance. But after a few years of drinking hooch with the locals, kicking it at country night in the townie bars and sleeping with a few old hags Deke Dickerson might call “goodtime gals”, I began to admire and cherish those meth-mouthed crackers. I actually prefer hanging with crazy redneck white folks to the ones I meet at fashion week, because at least those hilljacks know how to party and they’re not trying to be anyone but themselves.

This is all to say that Mark McNairy’s latest collection was hillbilly chic and I loved every minute of it – from the guy models chugging beer at the end of the runway to the girl models flashing switchblades. When every NYFW show is an exercise in abstraction, it’s awesome to see someone getting their inspiration from a class of fiercely independent yokels and nut jobs.

—By Wilbert L. Cooper

TIM COPPENS

Some people call old-ass luxury brands aspirational. I guess if you want to be an overweight, taco-meat sporting slime ball with Cuban link gold chains and RLS, then sure, they’re totally aspirational. Personally, my aspiration is to do some crazy youthful shit, like race cars in Monte Carlo with a bad bitch in the passenger seat and a plume of exhaust and dust in my wake. I’m pretty sure I could do this in any brand or type of clothes, but I would look best in Tim Coppens’s latest collection, which is inspired by car culture, just like OC’s. Great minds think alike, but in terms of dude’s clothes, Tim Coppens had OC beat. His looks were just too ill: one-piece driving suits, shiny racing leather and zippers in dope places.

—By Wilbert L. Cooper

All photos by Conor Lamb. Want to see more pics from these shows? Check out his photoblog. 

Want more NYFW? Check these out:

Day Seven: Badgely Mischka, Diesel Black Gold and Steven Alan

Day Six: Kaal E. Suktae, Choiboko and Beyond Closet at the Concept Korea Showcase