There was no overarching inspiration this season with Daniel Silver and Steven Cox’s Duckie Brown. The collection is a reflection of Cox’s pure, undiluted sense of color and form. On the walls in their West Village studio, loose sheets of paper were taped to the wall, each depicting an abstract expressionist croquis, some more immediately recognizable as clothing than others. A gold shape with a slight drape sat atop a black rectangle with a rounded top; while a statement long-sleeved magenta jacket floated between two draped gold shapes above and below, anchored by another magenta rectangle.
“I think this is the most important thing,” Cox said. “I don’t think I’ve done anything that comes close [to the sketches]. I mean, it’s almost a mirror.” His croquis has no bodies: there are no heads, no arms, no legs, nothing. It is logical. Duckie Brown may be a ‘menswear brand’, but the clothes are for anyone who wants to wear them. (The mini mood board this season featured images of Kristen Stewart and Jarvis Cocker, both dressed in suits.)
The suit remains the foundation from which the Duckie Brown universe emerges, except everything about it is available for experimentation. A tailored two-button jacket, worn with extra-wide, all-round pleated trousers in beige glen check Japanese cotton, is super light yet has the ability to hold shape and volume, almost like a ball gown skirt. A tuxedo shirt is made entirely of the pique fabric traditionally used only on the ‘bib’, and has 16 (functional) shiny gold buttons down the front that further the maximalist vision. And an oversized button-down shirt and high-waisted wide-leg pants in the same material have already found a home with a customer in Chicago.
“I think there’s something in there that’s a fantasy,” Cox added. A striking statement in a season when other designers were talking about creating everyday clothing for their customers. The difference, of course, is that Cox and Silver know exactly who their customers are; they greet them personally in their studio, they answer their DMs on Instagram. So when they talk about fantasies, they know exactly which ones they are fulfilling.
