Beyoncé? In Bushwick? In her first public appearance after announcing Renaissance: Act II at the Super Bowl on Sunday, Beyoncé attended the Luar show tonight alongside her mother and her sister Solange, whose son Julez Smith Jr. walked the show. Did Raul Lopez just win the New York Fashion Week Olympics?
Autocorrect edits Luar to liar. The computer will learn in due time, but there is an amusing synchronicity in the fact that Lopez titled this Luar collection Deceptionista. Now what, pray tell, is a deceptionista? The answer starts with another question: Remember the metrosexual?
The term was coined in 1994 by Mark Simpson. The metrosexual, Simpson wrote then, was a single young man living in a metropolis in close proximity to the best gyms, shops, and social spaces. He had vast disposable income, and spent it mostly on himself. The metrosexual is a well-manicured man whose sexuality is often immaterial—though he’s presumably heterosexual—who is well groomed, well-mannered, and has good style. For further context, David Beckham was once described as the “biggest metrosexual in Britain.”
“They’re back, and it comes in cycles,” said Lopez, pointing at images of Elizabethan and Victorian era men in brocades, makeup, and wigs; men in the late ’70s with tight knits and blow-dried hair; and in the ’90s and aughts in crop tops and with frosted tips. Taped on Lopez’s studio wall were images of Nicholas Hoult as Peter the Great, a portrait of “one of the Tudors,” and snapshots of Brad Pitt, David Beckham, and Matthew McConaughey in the early 2000s. “There are different generations of the metrosexual, and now we are in the era of the stray,” said Lopez with the solemnity of a studied anthropologist. A stray, dear reader, is “a straight gay.”
The collection in itself was an anthology of the metrosexual from the perspective of a queer man. “When I was coming up as a gay man, metrosexual was also a word to mask yourself,” said Lopez. “It was easier to say ‘Oh, he’s not gay, he’s just metro.’” While the word was used derogatorily, it was “easier than being gay.” Thirty years later, the term has somewhat fallen out of style, though, according to Lopez, it hasn’t gone away: “Now we have the manicured men that aren’t necessarily queer baiting, but people say they are,” said the designer. You know the ones, actors with pearl necklaces and little women’s handbags worn as cross bodies, “the ‘trade’ filming a full ‘beat’ on TikTok” [meaning a hyper-masculine looking man doing a full face of makeup on camera], and “the man wanting to emulate the look of a queer person or that of a chic woman.”
“These are men comfortable enough to greet you with two kisses and talk in a way that hypnotizes you into believing they aren’t who they really are.” Into believing they aren’t straight, that is. “But in reality, it is with us where the deception is,” said Lopez. The way he explained it, society likes to put men in boxes because of “heteronormative” programming. Enough with assuming a man will sleep with you, another man, just because his nails are done and he has a fresh fade, preached Lopez.
“My clothes can be really flamboyant, but could also be very masc at the same time,” Lopez said. This dichotomy was on display tonight on the runway as he offered opulent zebra devoré prints in shirting (a riff on Tom Ford, an iconic metrosexual), glossy leather tailoring in Lopez’s signature hefty proportions, and his recurrent hulking shoulder treatment on everything from cardigans to denim jackets. There were tight jeans paired with tighter tees (the uniform of the Dominican metrosexual, he said) that highlighted the models’ builds. A run of extra large jackets with the aforementioned bold shoulders and rounded sleeves (puffed up with impressively constructed triangular gussets at the cuffs), Lopez’s play on Elizabethan male attire, dwindled the body—the masculine shape of a wide back and built arms drowning beneath a one-size too large shield.
Lopez also offered a new range of essential styles. This line of Luar Basics featured sweater dresses, ribbed tees, sweats, and more. They had nothing basic about them—Lopez knows that in the right context and on the right people, even the most basic of sportswear takes on new meaning. Next to his fur stoles and leather and jersey boot covers, and alongside his sinuously cut panniers placed at the waists of circle skirts (call them a new “New Look”) and cascading down the legs of men’s tailored trousers, tonight Lopez offered a singular take on sportswear.
The one-two punch provided by Lopez tonight was the combination of a knockout collection paired with thought-provoking hypotheses about our culture. Why is a heterosexual man who looks after his grooming newsworthy? Why is it that the queer community reacts defensively to men who emulate us but aren’t us? Why are gay men fascinated by straight men? “We get mad because if they can do it then it means we’re not special either,” said Lopez. Forget the “strays,” metros, queers, straights, and everything in between. Tonight he christened the “Luarsexual,” and by asking the right questions about American culture and welcoming one of its biggest icons into his space, Lopez himself cemented his place as a key figure in American fashion today.
