An Anti-Soc Attends His First Fashion Show

Those who have met me will know I am not one for large social events. Therefore, it was with great trepidation and excitement that I would attend Custo Barcelona’s Fall-Winter 2020 show at New York Fashion Week. I had never heard of the brand prior to being selected for this endeavor and from what I could glance it is nothing close to what I would wear personally. But hey, we all have to start somewhere and it is a great privilege to cover an event for our illustrious readers.

After booking it on foot from Soho to the event space in the Lower East Side, I found myself in the press line outside the event space. Huddled in the February cold were various reporters and photographers all eager to get in and clearly excited for the show. Picking up on Catalan and Spanish tongues in the crowd I could not help but get the impression that this was a cultural event. Despite the frigid temperatures, many brought their Spanish summer chic to the event as tans and sunglasses were abound.

This impression of cultural specificity was confounded as I looked up the place where the event was being held: the Angel Orensanz Center, a former synagogue that was purchased by the eponymous Spanish artist and is now used mostly as an art gallery. I felt as if I was entering a space far removed from the cold streets of New York as I looked up at the Gothic Revival facade covered with a bold color palette.

Equally warm and inviting was the interior as the doors opened and the line funneled in. The stained glass and exquisite arched ceilings covered with decorative reliefs brought out the art history major in me. These skills came in handy as I discovered that this was a fashion show as well as an art show with curated paintings lining the walls of the space.

After I made my way up to the standing room balcony I quickly realized I stuck out like a sore thumb. Here I was in an olive drab trench coat, Undercover sweatshirt, and a pair of New Balances among men with fades and tight fitting jeans and girls wearing a half pound of makeup. I was not among a fashion crowd I could relate with. But that was fine. It is a different world that is not mine and I had a job to do; capture juicy content for the Perime Instagram story.

Alas after spending way too much time looking at someone feeling up the sequin tablecloth at craft services to pass time, the show started. Frankly it was entirely what one would think of a stereotypical fashion show. Bumping club music as models trotted out in sportswear meets cocktail dress affair. The clothes themselves were not much to write home about. Marked by a bright and iridescent color pallette and outerwear heavy, the collection seemed like something straight off the clearance rack at Zara.

The only thing binding the collection together was the bright, tacky color palette. That tackiness came through further with the cheap looking materials the collection utilized ranging from faux mohair that looks like it would stick to your hand with one swipe to waxy plastic covering resembling a low end knock-off of Virgil Abloh’s holographic bags for LV. These factors gave off the impression of the clothing being closer to costume. I mean that in the sense of a cheap piece of clothing bought for the expressed purpose of wearing it for one night and casting it away to the far flung corners of the closet.

While nowhere near my cup of tea, I guess the showcased garments stand to serve their purpose and have their place: to become a pick up on someone’s shopping spree who could care less to think about what looks good for more than a minute. This show had no overarching theme or deep references, but it was still a spectacle to behold for better or worse. Nonetheless, my introduction to on-the-ground coverage of the fashion world could have gone far worse.