Public School’s most recent men’s and women’s wear collections — shown within just weeks of each other earlier this year — boasted some similarities: both were inspired by the late 70s (the womenswear focused on New York’s pre-digital outlaw days, men’s turned to Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth), and featured bold belts, sharp tailoring, and triangle motifs. At one point, the collections shared rack space at the brand’s NYC office, co-creative director Maxwell Osborne told i-D backstage following the women’s show. Come June, they’ll be sharing space on the runway; it’s just been confirmed that like Burberry, Vetements, Tom Ford, and most recently Gucci, Public School will unite its collections in a biannual, gender-mixed show.
WWD reports that beginning this June, the brand will shift its runway presentations to align with the pre-collection calendar, showing the newly dubbed Collection 1 (pre-spring and spring) and Collection 2 (pre-fall and fall) in December and June respectively. “Showing twice a year with both men’s and women’s in one show will allow us to really develop our ideas cohesively throughout the year and subsequently slow the entire process down,” said Public School co-creative director Dao-Yi Chow. “We can actually enjoy our collections as opposed to being tied to the calendar.”
The move seems quite logical, and not merely for one of the reasons Osborne gave: “When we launched women’s it was always the extension of the men’s collections. It was a collection that our female friends could enjoy without altering the men’s pieces to wear.” Considering the design duo is also spearheading DKNY’s new chapter and undertaking collaborative projects with Jordan, it makes sense they’d want to trim yearly runway outings from six to four shows.
Echoing commercially-minded sentiments similar to Vetements CEO Guram Gvasalia’s, Public School president Anthony Landereau explained: “The objective is of course to always improve our performance and have the best sell-through, getting the goods early in the stores,” later adding, “Having one common concept for collection one and collection two will certainly help our accounts build a more robust and visually impactful assortment.”
WWD also reports that during fashion weeks scheduled in January and June (men’s) and February and September (women’s), Public School will focus instead on “consumer facing activity.” Given that the brand was one of the most anticipated shows on the newly launched New York Fashion Week: Men’s calendars, it’ll be interesting to see how the fledgling men’s week initiative fares not simply without one of its highlights, but also as more designers begin to adapt this unified model.
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Jason Lloyd Evans