This New York Fashion Week, Flying Solo produced an amazing show featuring emerging designers at Canoe Studios, located within the Starrett Lehigh building, headquarters for some of the most well known fashion brands. Each showcase displayed the exquisite work of upcoming apparel, jewelry, accessories, and shoe visionaries. Here are a couple of trends noted during these showcases.
1. Hoods and Head Coverings
Head coverings from hoods, silk scarves and the like were very much apparent this season, adding a bit of a classic touch and subtle secrecy. Siempre fashion paired them upon a variety of sleek black body-con dresses and accessorized them with jewelry from Exuberant Jewelry.
Think Finesse shared a hooded crop top in a casual fit with jeans, heels from Elizée Shoes, jewelry from In Cauda Venenum and Modern Natured, handbags from Shaleeka ID, and sunglasses by Privado Eyewear.
2. Gothic Allure
The seasons always churn for fashion, bringing back decades of subculture aesthetics to the forefront. The assistance of well received Netflix show Wednesday and her viral dance is an indicator that the goth girls are back and ready to lead the way into the fashionable future. Designs by Amari shows this with their simple, edgy and romantic designs all with a gothic flair paired with the jewelry from B Golden and shoes from Deiji Design.
3. Denim
On the topic of styles resurfacing, denim showed up quite a few times. The theme was completely owned by brand (Re) Blue with their entire line of Eco-conscious denim apparel and accessories. Denim came in the forms of jackets, skirts, pants, hats and even animal shaped bags and was paired with Petra Berends jewelry.
Denim, with its solid coloring yet unlimited play potential, is also the perfect platform as a contrast for other elements. Deiji Design used denim as their canvas during their set to showcase their shoes and paired it with jewelry from LNB Jewelry.
Buckanaga Social Club, a collective of indigenous artists, embellished their denim with flower patches and paired the ensemble with jewelry from In Cauda Venenum and heels from Elizée Shoes.
4. Monochrome with Gold Accents
While gold is a timeless accessory, this season, it was the go to choice for jewelry, headdresses and embellishments. The gold stands out again monochrome pieces with subtle patterning, aligning on class and chic. Undertop’s latest collection centered on monochrome bodysuits of white and black, varying in mesh cutouts and strap layout. They were delightfully paired with bold gold earrings of Petra Berend’s designs.
You can watch some behind the scenes footage of Undertop at Flying Solo as well as see all the looks from their latest collection HERE.
5. Mixed Patterns
On the other end of monochromatic pieces we have its polar opposite – mixing patterns. Coco Lili, an East African premium clothing brand based in Nairobi, Kenya, showcased their latest swimwear collection featuring mismatched bikini sets and one pieces with bold fabric patterning. All the ensembles were paired with jewelry from Tirisi, accessories from Privado Eyewear and shoes from Tina Carideo.
Designer Alicia Calero took a subdued approach with layering subtle geometric patterning under suits and pairing them with a houndstooth top. The feminine apparel was matched with jewelry from Afle Bijoux and handbags from Toya the Label.
6. Stitched Styling
Perhaps we are moving somewhere beyond the casual Covid lounge-wear into a more delicate combination of comfortable, cute and crafty. Stitched pieces in the form of crocheted and macrame apparel have taken to the runway.
Devina Juneja revealed macrame jackets, shawls, vests and tops with her latest collection showing a sophisticated take on stitched wearables and paired them with jewelry from Trinity Barbara.
Crocheted fashionable pieces have been elevated and with the summer season coming up, entire ensembles of crocheted apparel are very much in style. Marca Elise gives us porcelain pure looks with white crocheted dresses with blue details, keeping it effortless and romantic, and paired them with accessories from The Messy Archive.
Marca Elise at Flying Solo NYFW 2023 // Photo taken by Nicolette Francis / @becomingmodelesque
7. Dresses That Take Up Space
With the prevalence of bold patterning also comes bold structural designs. While couture always includes the big and the beautiful, we are seeing dresses that combine that structural elaboration in a more ready-to-wear setting. The dresses display physical empowerment in a smaller frame that you can still go to a party in.
Aishwarya Singhal featured in her latest collection a flowing fabric that resembled waves of the ocean and was paired with delicate jewelry designs from Acemi Jewelry.
Joya Ma emphasized in her designs the shoulders, waists and apparel embellishments with attention grabbing silhouettes for evening wear attire. Outfits were paired with jewelry from The Messy Archive, shoes from Elizée and accessorized with Sha’duction Eyewear.
8. Sustainable Fashion
Less of a theme and more of a direction that fashion is moving toward, sustainability and being eco-conscious is a direct mindset movers in the industry are implementing. It is more known now how the fashion industry contributes greatly to the polluting of the environment through manufacturing, harvesting of materials, the by-products created by shipping, plastics returning to the water when caring for garments, and the end of life of products sitting in modern wastelands.
With so many aspects to the chain of garment life, companies are taking initiative where they can to offset the damage being done and encouraging better behavior on the behalf of the makers of the industry.
Lufu Lily does their part from the material end, creating swimsuits made from recycled fishing nets, plastic bottles, and textile scraps. From what would be hanging out in the ocean, they transform into the nylon that goes into the swimsuits instead. Swimsuits were paired with handmade jewelry from Buen Camino that uses a technique called plique à jour to create heirloom quality wearable stained-glass pieces.
House of Kerry bodies sustainability from its very core to the end product. Located on a farm that acts as a conservation for biodiversity, House of Kerry focuses on high quality pieces that can be passed down generations. From sustainable materials to non toxic inks used in digital printing, the center-point of sustainability is always adhered to. Many pieces also utilize manual labor instead of mass manufacturing such as hand-dying fabrics and hand-sewing embellishments.
Many of the pieces in this latest collection were love letters to nature. Prints were dedicated to landscape and nature. The last look of the collection was an “Ode to the Pollinators” showing a bee keeper’s hat with a blanket scarf made of Irish linen and embellished with mesh like decal meant to mimic bee wings. Butterfly inspired “eye spots” were woven into the scarf.
Flying Solo NYC produced such an amazing selection of emerging designer collections for NYFW this year. If you are interested in seeing some of the designers’ work in person, several collections are made available at the Flying Solo store located at 420 W Broadway, New York, NY 10012. You can also purchase online at Flying Solo NYC’s official website as well as each of the designers personal websites.
