The rolling fields surrounding the small town of Pine Plains, NY—where the artist Dan Colen’s Sky High Farm can be found nestled among 40 acres of pasture and vegetable fields—typically play host to an eclectic crowd of cows, sheep, and chickens. But on an overcast spring morning this past weekend, an even more eclectic crowd began trundling their way down the country lanes that lead to the nearby Kaatsbaan Cultural Park: a veritable who’s who of New York’s creative set, ready to spend the day celebrating the Sky High Farm Spring Picnic.
While Sky High Farm may be most familiar to fashion followers for its Dover Street Market-supported clothing line Sky High Farm Universe, which has seen Colen and his team collaborate with the likes of Balenciaga and Nike, its origins began in 2011, when Colen first established the farm with a view to it becoming a nonprofit aiming to combat food scarcity across New York state, donating the entirety of its produce to food banks and pantries from Pine Plains to Brooklyn. And the Spring Picnic may well be their most ambitious fundraising project yet, drawing on supporters from Chanel to San Pellegrino to Colen’s gallery Gagosian to raise money for their ongoing projects surrounding education, food access, and the climate crisis.
Still, given the roster of fashion luminaries involved as either hosts or advisors to the event—from Chloë Sevigny to Paloma Elsesser, and from Marc Jacobs to British Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi—it’s little surprise that the majority of guests arrived ready to, well, turn a look. While taking in performances from Kelsey Lu, Moses Sumney, and The Roots, attendees channeled the event’s crunchy-chic spirit in plenty of retro graphic T-shirts, tie-dye, and denim, before sipping fruit punch and sampling snacks from local vendors. When it comes to shortening the streetwear to social justice pipeline, was the event a success? We’re willing to bet the farm on it.
