The NYC Melting Pot
I love New York. It may seem stereotypical to say, but I do.
I’ve been a tourist there for a couple of summers and felt completely transported by it. Whether or not you were born in New York, the city is as much an “Empire State of Mind” (Jay-Z 2009) as it is a geographical place.
In 1986, Jean Baudrillard said in his travel diary that “As soon as you set foot in America, you feel the presence of an entire continent”. This statement embodies the way I feel about New York City. So many different communities have travelled there to make a new home therefore creating a beautiful patchwork of people. Although native New Yorkers may not always perceive it as such. To them it’s natural; it is how things have always been.
Inspired by glamorous street style, this womenswear collection (Spring/Summer 2019) aims to embody the diversity of New York City’s Melting Pot and its societal performance. Here, sport and street influences share the same bed with sophisticated materials and luxurious hand embroidered details. Puffer jackets with heavily embellished basketball jerseys and sweatshirts, alongside fine digitally printed silk satins were used to illustrate the contrast between refinement and toughness.
Bringing together the street and the glittery sides of New York wasa main feature in my concept, as it is a city of “jungle toughness, but also sophistication, glamour, chic, wit”. (Burgess 1973