Christian Cowan is known for his downtown cool party wear, so it was fitting that he hosted his show outside tonight on Cortland Alleyway—which is about as downtown and edgy as a venue can be, complete with graffiti, trash, and rats. (Thankfully, no rats walked the runway.) The grungy location also served as a tie-in to one of his design inspirations of the season: Cowan wanted to create clothes that evoked the going-out clothes that kids in New York kids wear. He now lives here, yet he also wanted to infuse a Spanish sensibility: “the whole premise was taking my childhood memories growing up in Spain, and bringing them here to New York,” Cowan said backstage.
Call it an Ibiza-meets-Lower East Side club kid collection. However, some of Cowan’s earliest memories stem not from the nightclub-haven Ibiza, but the much chiller region of Galicia. “It was such a wonderful place, and I was surrounded by fabulous women growing up,” he said. “It didn’t matter if my grandmother was, like, beheading chickens or digging up roots—she would be in a pencil skirt, and always had jewelry on.” Cowan wanted to bring that sense of fabulosity into some of the more aggressive, racier dresses that he created in homage to the trendy Manhattan girls he outfits today.
His twisted T-shirted corset gowns, for one, all clung to the body, and were inspired by the women in Spain he grew up seeing constantly being soaked from a day at the beach. His striped rugs tops—his partner, Sam Smith, wore one in the front row—or paneled skin-tight latex gowns were another result of him attempting to blend European and American style codes. “For me, it was a fusion of maritime stripes and the barcodes of New York City,” he said of all those horizontal patterns, also seen on strapless ballgown paneled with stripes of mesh and fur.
Though Spain and New York have entirely different fashion aesthetics, Cowan found common ground by embracing silhouettes that were unapologetically fierce (meaning, lots of skin). “I found a commonality in the confidence of dressing that happens in both places,” he said. Compared to past seasons, which have been heavy on the rhinestones and denim, there was a clear attempt at refining and smartening up his materials this season. The opening number featured a black fur shrug worn with a pink silky maxi skirt, with garter-style straps dangling off the waist. A cropped black collared shirt, with a tiny little belt under the bust, was sexy in a blatantly Tom Ford-for-Gucci kind of way, paired with a butter yellow bubble skirt.
But this was a Cowan show, so it simply wouldn’t be the same without having a few pieces that were a little too much. His pink deep-V cocktail dress with a full tulle ballerina skirt, for instance, read neither cool-New York nor effortlessly-chic Spain—rather full-on Barbieland. While it may not be everyone’s taste, the storytelling behind it was sugary-sweet at least, just like its hue. “Being in Spain was my most playful time—there was no hint of judgment about my femininity as a kid,” said Cowan. “It was a little homage to that.”