It’s apparently not enough anymore for a designer to just do good clothes, he has to deliver an experience too, Telfar Clemens mastered both with his spring collection. Part of it was beyond his control. It was pouring, the show was outside on the Blade helipad on the FDR and 34th Street, and the weather contingency plan amounted to a tarp jerry-rigged to a chain fence, sheltering only the portion of the audience that could fit under it. When it buckled under the weight of the raindrops, someone came out with a broom and poked it until the water drained off. Eventually, the wind blew the tarp away completely. Everyone got wet. Everyone coped. It brought a bemused camaraderie to the atmosphere.
Weather aside, there was a lot going on. Clemens staged his show of unisex clothes around a barebones performance medley anchored by a single drummer and FAKA, the queer South African music and performance art duo comprised of Fela Gucci and Desire Marea. It was pretty impossible to take your eyes off them, with their hypnotic sound and stage presence that seemed to only amplify in the rain. But if you did, you saw a collection of casual everyday American
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