In 2012, one of New York's coolest independent brands landed in the city. At Essex Market yesterday, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta celebrated what it means to still be forging your own path in fashion after 10 years of success for Fall 2022.
Amongst empty shelves of the market, to a soundtrack created by Brian Chippendale, the collection was offered in a classically "Latta" way, presented on friends of the House like Hari Nef, Paloma Elsesser, Cole Mohr, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Thistle Brown, and Okay Kaya. Sexiness was reframed with sheer sequin gowns with offbeat hemlines and loose knitwear with open backs; skirts were slashed open to reveal thighs, heavy duty cotton was hole-punched and laced back together to create pockets of open-ness on the body. Shiny pants unzip to the underwear line to reveal panels of the same material intercepted with skin. Similarly, jeans are distressed from thigh to ankle, leaving thick threads of white cotton behind or replaced altogether with burlap-like open knit panels.
While most is wearable for the daytime, a tribute is paid to New York's nightlife with glittering sequins, wispy sheer dresses, trousers with the thighs cut out to emulate chaps, and graphic chainmail spliced dresses that swing and hang off the body. Glitter is applied to faces and hands, most notably to Okay Kaya's hands, who walks down the makeshift runway in a sheer ensemble dipped in glitter smoking a cigarette.
The handiwork is there, in classic Eckhaus Latta fashion, and for 10 years in the business of being the coolest brand in NYC, the DNA of the brand is paid homage to in it's pieced-together silhouettes and earthy tones with motifs of the city, spliced with the brands best-selling pieces. The iconic EL jeans, a commercial workhorse for the brand, are offered alongside chain mail that was reportedly being finished moments before the runway, offering a union between access and craftsmanship like no other. Happy birthday Eckhaus Latta, we hope you never change.
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Image: @eckhaus_latta
