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designer Willy Chavarria
Things are loosening up ever-so-slightly in menswear design (if collections from the likes of <anchor>designer Willy Chavarria</anchor> are any indication, for example). So, think fits with more room to move—remember that more relaxed clothes can still be tailored to the proper length while following acceptable menswear rules.
Willy Chavarria Spring 2023 Menswear Collection | Vogue
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# Willy Chavarria



September 15, 2022

Willy Chavarria took us to church—the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan—for a show that mixed his signature larger-than-life silhouettes with exquisite tailoring. It opened with a beautiful song performed a cappella in Spanish by Dorian Wood about the way borders keep us separated, which could be read literally but Chavarria meant it more metaphorically. “The song is about the division in our world,” he explained backstage afterward. “If you noticed in the show, the actors were divided by ethnicity, and that was not only to represent the division that we are experiencing, but to show the solidarity within the culture. To show the strength of people when they’re unified.”

First, a group of men wearing Pro Club’s signature extra-long T-shirts and Dickies—both part of a collaboration with Chavarria—walked out and placed bunches of roses on the altar. The first look was a navy tailored jacket with strong, wide shoulder pads that were situated ever so slightly beyond the natural line of the body, which worked to create a great amount of tension against the extra-long lapels that extended past the top of the torso. Its intersecting lines alluded to the Chi Ro symbol, also called a Christogram. The model, who wore a collared shirt and pleated wide-leg trousers as well, carried a cross at the center of his chest with one hand. A full khaki look, part of another collaboration with FB County, featured an extra-wide short-sleeve and wide-collar shirt tucked into high-waist, wide-leg trousers (though probably in Chavarria’s visual language these would qualify as simply “straight”).

Chavarria, who recently won the National Design Award for Fashion Design, has always favored volume and extra-large silhouettes as a way to “reclaim [the] space that has been taken” from people of color, but there was a new level of softness and sensuality woven through his collection this time around. Though it was always played against more traditionally American masculine elements like varsity logo T-shirts—one was paired with below-the-knee silver sequined shorts—and football jerseys, which he turned into short, princess-sleeve tops and layered over short-sleeve button-down shirts and paired with a skirt. Men wearing robes and dresses has been normalized on menswear runways, but it was interesting to see how, in the context of a church, the silhouettes completely changed meaning and were imbued with a sensibility that hinted at both a uniform as well as tradition.

“The first piece I did [for the collection] I called the altar-boy cape, and I just had it on a mannequin in my studio for a long time as the rest of the collection came about, so it’s funny that the collection became as spiritually tied as it ended up being,” said the designer. The capes were worn by both male and female models who came out in a group halfway through the show.

The absolute star of the show was a group of gorgeous fine-tailored pieces, like the slightly asymmetrical double-breasted silk tuxedo jacket with a giant fabric rose on the left shoulder, worn with fluid satin trousers. The rose also appeared on red silk taffeta trousers, complete with a ball gown–esque train and paired with a black leather tank, and again on a pair of extra-wide black satin trousers and matching button-down shirt, worn open at the chest and falling off the shoulders. The magic of Chavarria is that his world is so developed, and his aesthetic so specific and all-encompassing, that he can show these pieces next to his ready-to-wear offerings and next to his collaborations with traditional working-class brands like Dickies, Pro Club, and FB County, and they all seamlessly fit in with one another.

“I felt like this was a show about good and evil,” the designer added. “[Coming] from a religious background, I’ve always been a firm believer that good out-wins evil, [but] I felt like there’s almost a loss of God right now in the world.” If it’s true that God is love and beauty, then last night we all got a little closer to heaven at Chavarria’s show.

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