Growing up, Jonathan Cohen found his safe space at concerts. During a preview of his fall collection, the designer recalled getting tickets to Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation” tour for his bar mitzvah; seeing Tina Turner with his mother; attending Destiny’s Child (with its original four members), as well as recently seeing Beyoncé and Madonna. These memories served as his seasonal inspiration: concert lights.
His collection, staged presentation-style within the moody Maxwell Social with Blank Street coffee and pastries to kick off the morning, began with the familiar show-starting “pitch black” hue. For instance, a silk wool blazer with hand-done fine gold thread details and peplum back or a beautiful satin opera coat and tea-length dress (and later, a strong structured bustier top with tailored, puddle trousers), all of which incorporated the return of his well-known tie details with a more “mature hand to it,” (and nods to artist Lucia Fontana’s vibrant slashed works), he said. Ditto to the white prototype versions and dark blue denim layers.
The idea of concert lights strongly played into his seasonal abstracted motifs and fabrications. A memory of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards inspired his colorful, warped concert lights print (made up of layered photographs Cohen took of shows irl or streamed), as seen on a pretty pintucked dress and standout trench. Also, a multicolor, psychedelic poppy print (which also nodded to artist Dale Chihuly’s vibrant works), while a strong array of ladylike multicolor tweedy layers emulated TV static. Cohen said the latter specialty styles will be produced in limited quantities, as the Japanese fabric takes three months to weave 15 meters.
In addition, a gilded wrap jersey gown and transitional pointelle knits nodded to further emphasis on monochrome dress while embroidered styles showed off his brand’s signature scrap fabric circularity, like the strapless yellow Fontana cocktail dress.
“Because we’ve been reworking with our textiles for so long, we’re almost out of those scraps. So now we’re at this level where we have to rework everything to make it super circular, which is great and was our goal. Now, whatever we create, we reuse within the collection,” he said, emphasizing his achievement of elevating “deconstructed” elements in a very polished way.
Cohen’s looks were topped off with matching boots and mules from his second shoe collaboration with Larroudé. The footwear styles are available for pre-order.
