Front Row For The Revolution

Fueled in part by the rise of Hood By Air and Vetements, a new wave of NYC fashion collectives is proving you don’t need to be conventionally well-connected (or experienced) to make it to the big leagues.

- Alison S. Cohn

According to the mission statement on the invite for Section 8’s New York Fashion Week debut this past February, the show was intended “to occupy your mind’s real estate with a wearable fusion of underclass aesthetics and absolute privilege.” Translation: In a Chinatown art gallery, models were dressed in a distorted take on “corporate”—button-downs cut away to expose midriffs or shoulders; pencil skirts skewed on the diagonal—peppered with street references, e.g., a FUBU sweater refashioned as a mini. But it was the, er, accessories protruding from a number of the models’ mouths—actual koi—that proved the talking point. Section 8 is named for the federal low-income housing assistance program; the fish, usually associated with the decorative ponds of more affluent zip codes, were intended to symbolize, rather literally, fish out of water. The message, in no uncertain terms: The resistance starts here. “Our initial inspiration was to build a wardrobe for an intern working on the Trump campaign,” says Akeem Smith, the most visible of several hands behind Section 8. “We didn’t know anyone in reality doing that job, so we decided to make that person up through an act of collective imagination.” To him, the most extraordinary thing about this event? “It sold.”