Rihanna was rumored to be going to Vaquera tonight. As far as I could tell she didn’t show up, but I spied Julia Fox and Richie Shazam on the balcony. They were treated to Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee’s best show in some time. In the past, Vaquera designers would choose a theme and go with it. One season it was doubt and faith, the next season it was an identity crisis. A year before the pandemic, they were thinking – rather presciently – about the early domesticity of their twenties. While they’ve seen commercial success with their denim and jersey offerings lately, their runway efforts have felt more diffuse and vague.
This time they were in awe: about the time crunch between seasons, about a lack of days off, about their less-than-impressive bank accounts almost a decade into their draft careers. What really struck them, they said, is how much they cared about money. There is only one word for that: recognizable!
“Fashion today is dominated by the crudest form of currency,” DiCaprio said. “We felt that artistic merit and vision were a more powerful currency in the past.” And so, in a punk move, they developed a print of the US currency – apparently not so easy with image creation tools – and graffitied Andrew Jackson’s eyes, or painted hearts across his face, and stamped the word FAKE on Andrew’s eyes Jackson. White House. And then they used it for a matching button-down and tie, the cummerbund on loose-fitting trousers and the three-dimensional rosette bodice on a cocktail dress.
Playing with another currency – sex – there were cone bra tops and T-shirts with cone bra print, titty twister T-shirts à la their icon Vivienne Westwood, and distressed leather chaps, one of the surprising trends of the season . Claire Sullivan, with whom they operated Vaquera as a trio before her departure during Covid, wore a shrunken polo shirt with inserts on the breasts.
DiCaprio and Taubensee aren’t naive enough to think fashion is an artistic pursuit, but they’re also not cynical enough to believe it’s all about dollars and cents. They would like a day off, but they wouldn’t change it either. “I’m grateful for where we are today,” DiCaprio said. Keep grinding, guys.
