Gender Re-Constructs
Review of Luar Spring 2024 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
THE THEME
Finding deeper meaning in the proportion play that characterizes much of the design across his quickly upcoming brand (which has featured most recognizably on oversized handbag handles and boulder shoulders), Luar’s Raul Lopez played with scale, asymmetry, and typically rigid garment categories to explore new concepts of gender and herald the days of cis-heteronormativity as finally over. Luxuriously uplifting the Brooklyn underground’s rejection of cisgender binaries, the final show of New York Fashion Week was a well-styled celebration of personal power.
THE BUZZWORDS
Fluid. Powerful. Structural. Proportional.
THE SHOWSTOPPER
Look # 5
Emphasized by the presence and appearance of the person wearing it, this look garnered applause from the crowd with its strange yet thrilling synthesis of a banal “male” garment on top – the polo shirt, with padded out shoulders for extra burl and bravado – and a slinky, sinuous, barely-there something that you might call a dress below. It’s an effectively hyperbolic statement of the collection’s call to look beyond the binary of femininity and masculinity as exclusive and opposite. We need designers like Lopez to show us that a fluid, free, and accepting world is not only possible, but inevitable.
THE DIRECTION
Luar has impressively resisted the urge among some young designers and emerging brands to go off in a whole new, overly ambitious conceptual direction with each season. Instead, each collection has steadily built on the design-focused ideas of the last, leading to a brand identity that is already impressively recognizable in a short period of time.
While it was a bit frustrating how the club-like flashing lights meant it was difficult to get a prolonged look at any of the collection’s details, there’s no denying that the production nicely matched the big energy of the collection.
THE WRAP UP
Considering the confidence with which Lopez blends tailoring and signifiers of luxury into a spirit of youthful, sensual bravado, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him enlisted by a major heritage luxury house some time soon. At the same time, though, he seems to have a great thing going with his own brand. Each season has excellently built on the last, serving covetable pieces but incorporating them into a distinct vision that harnesses contemporary energy. The brand name may be his first name spelled backwards, but Luar is Raul Lopez looking forward to an exciting future.
