Esteban Cortazar comes across as an eternal optimist, so it seems only natural that this quality would be crocheted, bonded, and layered into his clothes. Consider, for starters, the lines of a peace sign hand-threaded in Rasta hues down and across a model’s exposed back and connecting to the circular cut-out of her little white dress. It was the clearest message of a collection that superimposed exuberance with savoir faire.
Backstage, Cortazar listed a recent journey with his mother to India; memories of growing up surrounded by surfers and skaters in Miami Beach’s South Beach; and his favorite ’90s music divas, Sade, Lauryn Hill, and Erykah Badu as inspirations. “A kaleidoscope of personal ideas,” he summarized. The goal, he added, was to capture the spontaneity and unpretentious swagger of the schoolkids he observed while riding a bus from Tiruvannamalai to the holy hill of Arunachala. On the runway, the tying and draping implied that influence, even more so when hugged in place by silver sequin bandeaux. Cortazar’s workmanship scaled up from subtle (a white shirt dropping back from the shoulders) to complex (the one-sleeved knit dress pieced into Tibetan script). Now try to imagine the challenge of delicately stitching the mantras into a leather patchwork top—“an analogy of the interconnectedness of life,” to quote the program notes.
The seemingly oppositional forces of spiritual, sensual, and sport meant that some looks read more flattering than others; women will respond to the body-contoured, graphic surfboard-inspired dresses instinctively, vs. wrapping their heads around the crochet pants and sari interpretations. Retailers make their orders with Cortazar during the pre-collection periods (his innovative strategy has since been followed by other designers), so one can only hope that they loved the novelty of the frilled wetsuit leggings, color-blocked leather bra tops, and Paula Mendoza jewelry—not just the cool bias-cut jeans. Add in the deftly modified varsity jacket and stylized Tevas and you get the impression Cortazar delights in elevating the ordinary.
