Hood By Air Traded The Catwalk For The Duckwalk At NYFW

Finally, a fashion show that brings New York back to Fashion Week. Shayne Oliver, the mastermind behind the meteorically popular Hood By Air, continues his reign as a boundary-pushing designer this past Sunday with his fall 2014 collection. True to HBA form, the casting was a mix of men and women, the clothes combined street with logo with suit culture, and the front row was a menagerie of Internet celebs, alt icons, and on-the-cusp zeitgeist stirrers. Zippers, saturated graphics, and a minimal color pallet stomped its way down the runway while models donned overly-fake hairpieces and androgynous beauty looks.

It's the latter part, the beauty, that defines HBA's aesthetic. Oliver doesn't just buck traditional womenswear runway codes — he aggressively throws a bright, bold finger up and puts it on a projector screen for the rest of the world to see. His collection is void of any gender to the point that it doesn't matter what sex is walking toward the flashing lights. This season, Oliver took that notion and duckwalked all over it — literally.

At the end of his show, a group of topless male dancers in wigs paraded out, posed, and began voguing. It was a trip to say the least. The ambiguousness of ball culture exploded on the runway with each head whip, death drop, and pose. Like Rick Owens' stomp-the-yard scene in Paris, Oliver's finale was a powerful disruption to the mundane final walks of Fashion Week. It was a show, and Oliver was carrying the whole way through, down to the last defiant glare of the models. The collection came alive, and with it, so did NYFW. (The Cut)