Custo Barcelona is known for drawing influences from multiple cultures and combining styles to create a colorful and cohesive collection. This season, he chose to combine what he calls “Beauty and the Beast”.
His “beauty” was represented by fitted feminine but sporty influences and his “beast” was embodied by voluminously warm silhouettes and an ethnic aesthetic. This season his girl can be defined as the sporty, bohemian, nomad and his male is her suave, gypsy counterpart.
Trends
- Sports Influences – Yet again, another collection with sports influences is presented this season. In the Custo Barcelona collection, he brings tennis and kickboxing shoes, crew neck sweatshirts and backpacks and infuses them with his unique vision of patched together tribal printed fabrics. It was nice to see the models, both male and female dressed in practical Fall/Winter footwear, so in some senses, it seemed that this collection was striving for practicality… but in some cases, not so much.
- Sexy Backs – The “Beauty” part of the collection apparently caters to the girl who likes to show off the curve of her back. Large cutouts in otherwise warm overcoats seem a bit counterintuitive for the sometimes inclement weather in New York, but perhaps these windows would work to show off the layers you typically have hidden underneath.
- Exagerrated Shapes – The outerwear featured a few notable pieces with voluminously structured sleeves, fuzzy gorilla arms, and an amazing sleeping-bag-like cape. Maybe it was the fact that a massive snow storm had just hit the city, but I found myself loving the most exagerrated shapes and wanting to be wrapped in the warmth of the beastly layers. The men wore fitted trenches, blazers and anoraks but had oversized blanket capes and shawls draped around their shoulders.
Beauty
Makeup was minimal and hair was simple. The female models had their hair in a single cornrow braid down the center of their heads, down to the nape of the neck. The hair was sleek against the head and then freely frizzy just past the ears.
By Sylvia and Samantha of lipglossandblack
Photos by Sylvia