As symbols, eagles and stars will make many think of the USA. Many others, however, will think of West Africa, where the Nigerian national soccer team is called the Super Eagles and a single star lives proudly at the center of the Ghanaian flag. This overlap in part explained the graphic abundance of both symbols in the collection presented by Off-White this afternoon. Sierra Leone–born designer Ib Kamara’s third, much more subtle, graphic gesture was the deep V that ran down the thighs of some fitted scuba-meets-moto looks: This was just one way in which he lifted his creative beret to salute the Off-White’s inspirational late founder.
The collection was entitled State of Resistance and shaped around the notion of uniform. Kamara was studiedly non-specific in the pre-chat—“It’s about a futuristic community coming together to solve a problem of what’s to come”—but you didn’t have to be a geopolitics geek to glean the subtext. As well as being a point of reference for Virgil Abloh in the past, the berets here today were reminiscent of the Black Panthers as well as multiple examples of pan-African political resistance. Kamara chose to return to Off-White’s once ubiquitous hazard stripes iconography, here on a new accessory named the Sand Bag: another coded reference to emergency defense. That stripe design, by the way, is one I’ve long thought was originally at least 3% inspired by the 1988 Schmitt Stix “Danger” skateboard deck which Abloh, as a childhood skater, would surely have seen shot floating high above half pipes in the pages of Thrasher.
The Off-White arrows pointed to every corner on a denim-effect jersey full look. More graphic eagles and stars were embroidered or printed onto tailored topcoats, ties, fitted sheath dresses. There was a creative parlay with bouclé, which was worked into more jersey in a big shouldered ivory jacket and some woven-color cropped menswear jackets. Storage was everywhere, little poppered utility compartments worked into shoes, pants, jackets and bandoliers. This finely timed show worked to mobilize a mood.
