For an out-of-towner, IB Kamara sure can draw a crowd. Off-White was back in New York City today after a season in Paris and Kamara and co. made the most of their return, securing the roof of the New Design High School on the Lower East Side and commissioning local graffiti artists to tag its walls in a visual ode to the city’s five boroughs. It felt as much like an art opening as it did a fashion show. Or like a basketball game. Ellie the Elephant, the mascot for New York Liberty women’s team, with whom Off-White was collaborating, had a front-row seat.
Backstage, Kamara was talking about another NYC export, even bigger than graffiti: streetwear. Before he died, Virgil Abloh posited that “streetwear is dead.” Kamara believes differently, as he’s made clear over the last year in a trio of shows that covered similar ground, tapping into sport, biker, West African, and, yes, streetwear motifs. “I want to make sure the language is understood,” he explained backstage. “I’m realizing what my taste is, and I think this collection feels like a complete merge of my time here and me.”
It is a colorful, bold, playful kind of taste. Body-con leggings and sheer button-downs with shoulder pads, and second-skin knits—all in graphic color-blocking that made the clothes look built for speed. Topstitched denim with Swarovski crystal studded collars; hoodies and jeans airbrushed with the skyscrapers. “They’re clothes that are meant to not look like everything else,” he said. And he got that right.
Kamara named the collection “Fountain of Youth,” a nod to the New Design High School students who watched the show from the cafeteria and a tribute to the young Black pioneers who gave the world not just graffiti and streetwear, but also hip-hop. From that contingent, Busta Rhymes and Mary J. Blige were in the crowd. But the music that made such an impression at the show was by Kamara, and Azekel, Erik Bodin, and Yukimi Nagano, according to the press notes. The last song before the finale defied the Shazam app, but it was a quiet, beautiful banger.
