Review of Willy Chavarria Spring 2022 Fashion Show
Pushing the Boundaries of Self-Parody to Find Sincere Vulnerability
By Mark Wittmer
Willy Chavarria’s Fall 2021 collection was mainly characterized by really big shirts. Working with references to streetwear and workwear, the designer had always dabbled in the oversized, as many do, but that collection saw him push it into new territory that recalled the post-ironic performance-art madness of David Byrne – and made for an intriguing, albeit not exactly wearable, exploration of masculinity and identity that many designers seem afraid to undertake. How does a designer follow up a collection that broke such conceptual ground by simply making big shirts?
The answer seems obvious: big pants. And even bigger shirts.
Held at iconic Noho barber shop Astor Place Hairstylists, the presentation began with four looks that featured no shirts, and humongous, ballooning pants that reached past the waist. Above the waistline of these post-parachutes peeked out the hem of what seemed to be boxing shorts. After the casting, these hidden shorts were the first indication of Chavarria’s exploration of his Mexican-American heritage and identity, a constant theme throughout his work. At once encompassing national pride and masculine machismo, boxing has been huge throughout the last century of Mexico’s cultural history, and remains quite popular today among Mexican-American communities.
From here the competing ideas of masculinity and vulnerability are reconfigured through several aesthetic codes connected to the Chicano culture Chavarria grew up among: cowboys, lowriders, workmen, gangsters. The designer celebrates the idea of the macho man while simultaneously showing the absurdity of the ideal – in huge clothes, even a big man looks small. The proportions of some short-sleeve button-down shirts are so ridiculously blown up that their collars almost look like a nun’s cowl – another brilliant reference to one of Mexican and Chicano culture’s most influential elements.
Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of Chavarria’s vision is how all of this is seen through a personal but undeniable gaze of sensuality. Through the consideration of materials and the way they cocoon, expose, and reveal the body, these men are swaddled, embraced. Their bodies are beautiful, and though it is buried under (or perhaps revealed by?) ironic layers of toxic performativity and idealization, this beauty is celebrated. Who was it, after all, that created the idea of an ideal male? Queerness and homoeroticism is another element tied up in Chavarria’s exploration of identity, so complex yet expressed so precisely and effortlessly.
Chavarria’s designs are a gift of vision. By executing recognizable cultural codes, blowing them up to a proportion in which we can see their absurdity, and bringing it crashing back down to emotional reality, he enables us to see the experience of masculine identity and cultural heritage more clearly: all their absurdity, power, unjustness, sensuality, and beauty.