Jackson Wiederhoeft staged his spring collection at the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village, and the show had begun before the audience even realized. In the middle of the stage sat rows of chairs in a semi-circle, and while editors and buyers filed in, models in a variety of Wiederhoeft dresses and separates, all in shades of peach and pink, emerged from backstage and took a seat. It was subtle and easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it; especially given the amount of Wiederhoeft customers that attend his shows wearing full looks.
The lights went down and the models turned out to be dancers, who began to perform an elaborate choreography involving the folding chairs they were seating on. A “starlet” came out wearing a black satin midi gown embroidered with glass beads worn underneath a violet corset, and the dancers moved and lifted the chairs, transforming the space. It was a runway, the starlet wiggling her way through the center of a row of chairs while they held up imaginary phones in their hands; it became a childhood game of “duck, duck, goose,” with all the dancers sitting in a circle and the starlet walking around them; and then the dancers into students, writing in imaginary notebooks, with the starlet as maybe the teacher.
Then the real show—the fashion show—began. The first model emerged from behind gossamer-like curtains in a long sleeve fringed dress embroidered with the phrase “Wonderful Memories, Dreams of our Love, Together forever,” it was the second model, however, that signaled something new was afoot: she wore a casual black cotton twill day dress asymmetrically draped across the bodice with black mule sandals. How funny to have Wiederhoeft’s dream be grounded in real ready-to-wear clothes. “I’ve been really lucky to build the business with bridal and special projects, but I really want to think about what s next,” he said after the show. The designer launched at Bergdorf Goodman last year, and his front row was packed with more reps from the big department stores than celebrities (and that’s a good thing!—although Julia Fox certainly looked fantastic in a short bridal gown with an oversized veil that covered her entire body like an exotic pastry under glass). He continued, “it’s exciting to see people respond to the pieces. I was slow to do wholesale mostly because during the pandemic it seemed scarier than anything, but I just want to do everything.”
It is sometimes tricky when a designer who is known for heavily embellished or technically complicated clothes that are about fantasy attempts to bring that vision down to earth. But Wiederhoeft seems able to easily slip into that frame of mind. Last season he experimented with more youth-inspired pieces like decadent hoodies and wide-legged jeans, but perhaps it was the Bergdorf of it all that had him in a Lady frame of mind (and indeed there was a dancer sporting a T-shirt with “Lady-Like” embroidered at the chest). There was a glamorous suit, with a long jacket and straight pleated trousers made from the lightest wash denim. Both pieces were embellished with a mess of pearls and crystals at the cuffs that jingled as the model walked by. Wiederhoeft paired it with a very sensible light blue button down shirt. Another model wore a tank top with the word “Heiress” embroidered on the front, paired with an easy drawstring tangerine skirt in silk taffeta embroidered with a melange of sequins, crystals and fringe. On her arm, she carried a folded denim jacket, for if it gets cold later, one assumes. It was exactly the way fashion lovers incorporate so-called capital-F “Fashion” pieces into their everyday wardrobes. But not everything needs embellishment in the land of Wiederhoeft: a raspberry long-sleeve bias-cut dress with wide cuffs and an empire waist stood out for its simplicity—a vehicle to modestly showcase the body of the person wearing it.
For the third act (there’s always a third act), Wiederhoeft plunged the audience into chaos. Back in a fashion show-esque scenario, there was another “dancer-as-starlet” in a slinky pale pink gown and old Hollywood ringlets protected by a band of four sexy security guards wearing bedazzled tank tops that spelled out SECURITY. Two ballroom dancers wore poodle-inspired formalwear; three “girls-about-town” were in trompe l’oeil lingerie and corset-inspired pieces; and one woman, identified as “AUSTERITY” in the show notes, wore a silver bonded lamé gown with a bustle and a corset. They moved around the stage in unison and not, gyrating, trembling, dancing, posing and eventually building a sculpture of chairs in the middle of the stage that fell in a dramatic fashion.
After the show, Wiederhoeft said, “I’ve always been dying to do something about dreams and nightmares—I have crazy ones myself—so I thought this was a nice moment to celebrate chaos and find serenity in chaos.” He added, “I feel like the craziest dreams in the world can be the most beautiful.”
