Introducing PD-168, Peter Do’s New Every-Day-of-the-Week Label

About two years ago, Peter Do had an epiphany. Maybe it was time for Peter Do, the person, he got to thinking, to not be so front and center with Peter Do, the brand which bears his name. “I never wanted to be the face of Peter Do—to be one of those very public founder-led labels,” Do said at his studio in Brooklyn’s Industry City last week. “I always wanted the codes of what I do to be the important thing.”

Now, that thought has come to fruition as Do launches a new label, called PD-168. While the PD is obvious, the 168 is the number of hours in the week, which should give you a clue where Do’s head is at: This is a functional, practical, intelligent collection of 20-or-so pieces, riffing on his modernist way with athleticism and tailoring, devoid of gender, and inclusive of sizing (XS to XL, and up to XXL in some instances)—a modular wardrobe, quotidian in terms of inspiration yet elevated in spirit.

“It’s comfortable, easy to look after, and will travel well,” he said of the all-black collection—jackets, track pants, tees, shirts, and tanks, rounded out by an asymmetric (and very Peter Do) pleated skirt to layer (or not) at whim; a slope-shouldered coat; and, a lightly padded blazer, like a tuxedo you could go hiking in.

Everything is priced relatively modestly, at least in terms of fashion today: from $110 for a tank to around $850 for the coat or chunky leather boots. (Shoe-wise, there’s also a soft lace-up and another boot, adorned via a single strap.) Do has used only three fabrics—super-soft cotton terry, a jersey with a delicious drape-y tactility to it, and a liquid satin that he developed in Japan to be like “a modern silk that you can wash.” In fact, you can launder all of these clothes in the machine. (A nation’s dry cleaners weep in anguish.)

Do fit the clothes on himself. After years of dressing others, he said, PD-168 allows him “to create a personal uniform, based on what I’ve discovered about myself as a designer. I feel more confident and concise—and this [PD-168] is exactly how I envisioned my work to be. Everything is derived from this question of, ‘What do we need? How do we reduce things down to a few pieces that can take you through the day?’” He is present in other ways, too, even if he started with the impulse to remove himself. (Designers wouldn’t be designers without their quirks.)

So: A face-masked Do will appear sporting every piece on the e-commerce part of the website (the collection, which will be updated yearly, is only available to buy there, though there is a pop-up with Lower East Side store du jour, Komune, in the works), along with his colleague and long-time friend Trish Do (to underscore how the pieces can work for any gender). The shirting—capacious yet crisp—is inspired by the vintage white cotton shirt he picked up at Portobello Market in London aeons ago.

And there’s another mark—quite literally—of his time in London, when he was working for Phoebe Philo at Celine: The white line that runs across the left sleeves of many of the PD-168 pieces comes from his own tattoo—a black line which similarly runs from his left middle finger to the top of his neck. He got that about a decade ago, when his Celine intern told him her boyfriend was a tattoo artist who’d just opened his own shop. Since Do had already been inking lines on himself as part of his look for London’s then-dress-to-the-nines club scene, he decided to get the tattoo to make it everlasting.

Dancers performing in the new PD168 collection.

Permanence is a recurring theme here. Of course, uniform or not, his PD-168 pieces can’t last forever, but he’s thinking about how he can get beyond the rarified, precious feel of things to a point where wearing the label will be as natural and reflexive as brewing coffee in the morning. The performance-based approach means you can exercise in the clothes—and dance in them, too: Do cast dancers across New York for a Samuel Schler-choreographed piece, which was filmed at the Brooklyn Museum. (Another campaign, shot in Saigon, features a cast of fierce creatives wearing PD 168.) Instead of walking the red carpet, Do’s thinking about walking around the office. It’s the thought of the clothes being worn to TED talks which is rocking the designer’s world. (Already, a New York City strategic consultancy company, Office of Applied Strategy, has adopted PD-168 as their go-to-work garb.)

The Office of Applied Strategy, has adopted PD -168 as their go-to-work garb.

On the other side of the studio in Industry City sat a rack of his eponymous collection, including a series of beautiful coats with backs traced with traditional Thai tie-dye, looking for all the world like morphing, shifting vertebrae. Do reasons that the arrival of PD-168 will allow him to work on a non-seasonal cadence with Peter Do, making beautiful things that can be introduced at various points during the year—a rhythm more about the impulse of creativity rather than the relentless considerations of commerciality. (The rationale is that PD-168 will fire the company’s engines.)

Yet when he’s designing those Peter Do pieces, he’ll only ever be in PD-168. In fact, the day of his new label’s launch sees him put his closet where his mouth is: Everything he has worn till now has been packed away, that vintage shirt included, and instead, going forward, his new label will be what he wears, day in, day out, again, and again, and again.

Visit the PD168 site here: www.pd-168.net