An Experimental Fashion Show Presents a Vision of Artists in Motion

Guests at the Dec. 16 event were instructed to wear all black. The assignment might have turned the lobby of Monument, a SoMa event space, into a funeral hall had there been less leather, or fewer pleats. Instead, the crowd resembled the queue for a Berlin nightclub.

The occasion: an experimental fashion show and clothing pop-up called The Wedding. Emerging designers flew in from Tokyo, Mexico City, Krakow and New York to join a slate of Bay Area brands in an exhibition freestyling on the marital theme. The night’s hosts — Oakland boutique Two Two and the California pop-up jane galerie — converted the Monument lobby into a runway, marking its borders with minimal floral arrangements that sprouted from the shiny concrete floor like sophisticated weeds.

Two Two’s founder, CC Doan, told me that the lineup of designers included a mix of brands she carries in her store and some she and Janie Perez-Radler of jane galerie have admired from afar. It was an unusual setup for a fashion show, which more regularly presents the ideas of a single designer whose setting and decor choices amplify the vision of the clothes. Here, designers would instead put their spins on the thematic vision of the organizers; the clothes were not on display in their worlds, but in our own.

This group show enabled relative comparisons between makers that breathed a dynamism into each garment. Take Northern California designer Violette Hay’s sole look of the evening, a glistening white satin gown that clung to the body of its model beneath a spidery web of bejeweled white yarn. The outfit presented a fantasy of the wedding as sensual, romantic — a stark contrast to the punk belligerence of the collaboration between Oakland’s Olivia Krause and the brand Devotion. Their heavily airbrushed crop tops and shimmery, fuchsia eyeshadow signaled a rejection of tradition rather than its embrace. One of their models sported a mohawk in three green-tipped, footlong spikes; black, dusty combat boots peeked out from a knee-high slit cut down the side of black trousers.

The two visions, juxtaposed, called attention to each designer’s niche, localized style. Who are the people in these clothes, the comparisons seemed to beg. Forget what they have to say about our culture. What are these people trying to say about themselves?

A total of 14 designers exhibited in The Wedding, and each in relation to the other became a sort of statement of personality — a glimpse into subculture. Oakland’s Raven S Fox delivered hypersexual glamor for downtown nights with one-of-one leather patchwork pieces drawn tight and slim around the chest, upper bodies almost entirely exposed. Another Oakland brand, Unsettle, sent models down the runway decked head to toe in monochrome canvas utility gear, no skin in sight. One Unsettle model carried a DJ controller under his arm, but you got the sense he might more regularly lug a skateboard.

A few recurring motifs — messy patchwork, crochet, airbrushing — hinted at a common character of interest in each collection: the artist, whose enviable do-it-yourself improvisations remix the conventional. For Tokyo designer Yusho Kobayashi this meant an image of the Harajuku schoolgirl personalizing her uniform. A chunky, frilled seifuku dress was paired with a hat wreathed in silver chain; a drapey knit sweater was covered in a frenzy of black and white knit flowers. For Brooklyn designer Rumimiu, it meant hand-knit and crocheted maxi dresses in wide open weaves, dripping with strings of yarn in royal blue and mustard. This was an artist at play — who else would have such audacity to wear a cream knit ruff?

The most breathtaking and all-encompassing looks of the evening, for my money, though, came from the eponymous Phoenix/Mexico City brand Lou Badger. Her first outfit was a slouchy white-on-white long-sleeved shirt and maxi skirt combo, both draping in relaxed, textured folds. In a twirl, the model released a bunch of material at her cuff and her left sleeve slinked to the floor like a bridal train. Badger’s second look saw a man wearing a structured white satin collared jacket underneath a white satin utility vest. At the waist, a diagonal seam in the jacket converted the garment to a dress, cutting off just above the knee.

We make so much of subversion, but subversion for subversion’s sake signals a void of personality, not a distinctive one. Badger’s looks, like the best outfits on the runway and in the crowd, bore the mark of singular tastes. The theme, in their hands and on their bodies, was an opportunity for a projection of self rather than a subsumption of it. How interesting the streets would be if we all dressed accordingly: Every day a theme, every day a self to show the world.

The Wedding pop-up shop featured at the event will continue at Two Two (3221 Grand Ave., Oakland) through Sunday, Dec. 24.