If you think about it, the only place you don t see the Swoosh pretty much every day in 2015 is on the runway. That s because Nike is wary of fashion, for fear an overemphasis on for-the-sake-of-it aesthetics might compromise its athletic-driven brand identity. So props to Astrid Andersen, who was again granted permission by the Portland gatekeepers to feature its footwear—what looked like a ruggedized, hiker-laced Air Max variant—at her Fall 15 show today.
That she consults for Nike no doubt helps, but Andersen s established recipe of exaggerated urban sportswear haloed with hyper-feminine detailing is counterintuitively compelling enough to sidestep Nike s issues with the F word. This time round though, Anderson significantly remixed her formula.
Although she cited the Hagakure (a text of stern warrior edicts consulted by Forest Whitaker s hitman protagonist in Jim Jarmusch s Ghost Dog), her clothes attacked the eye in a way that was more special-forces-touched than samurai. There was a vaguely threatening uniformity in the berets, the loose trousers hemmed by tight elastic above those Nikes, and shirting buttoned severely up to the neck. Andersen s branding was turned into shimmer-effect ID-like patches or blown up on a texturized basketball vest that featured pink damask patterning—this collection s incongruously pretty decorative detail.
First on a lace hoodie with matching beret, then as trim on a short-sleeved shirt and a sweat, next applied to that shaggy vest, and finally on a fur hat, the pink came at us in a five-look flurry before unexpectedly receding. In its place Andersen launched an extended riff of red, gray, and berry-toned faded plaids, some knit, some not, but all relatively conventional—and consequently rather less intriguing than what came before. So why rein back? Why mute the girly touches that need a real man to wear them? Perhaps Andersen is keeping her glitter dry for the launch of her "debut bespoke line" in New York next month. Or perhaps she can t find enough men with the cojones to wear her Dancing With the Stars-iest pieces.
