It was tempting to go into Unravel with a bad attitude. It feels like fashion has already sold its soul to jeans, sweatshirt and puffer jackets. Do we really need another designer jeans, sweatshirt and puffer jacket brand? But Ben Taverniti’s fall Unravel collection was a pleasant surprise. His versions of the streetwear staples had an attitude and level of sophistication that, while not groundbreaking, brought something worth looking at to the genre.
“It’s L.A. moves back to Paris,” Taverniti, who’s French but based in Los Angeles, said backstage. Aware that his core tenets are basics, he focused on elevating them. His eye for DIY deconstruction was spot-on. Sweatshirt hoods were cut off and disembodied from the rest of the top and worn with balaclavas, shaping up to the be the accessory of the season. The waists of jeans and leather pants were cut off and refashioned as corsets — a red suede style layered over a long, draped red jersey dress, for example. And his most clever idea was fusing puffers and bombers with sweatshirts and workwear shirts at the collar for a little trompe l’oeil effect. Rather than having to affect the jacket-falling-off-the shoulder look, he did the work
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