The setting is New York at the end of the 1970s – start of the 1980s: at the dawn of the Hip Hop movement, in the years when subway graffiti, breakdance and gang clashes (“The Warriors”) first emerged.
New York is a hotbed of unrestrained creativity, churning out artists the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol founder of the Factory, and Keith Haring…
The Luca Larenza collection is evocative of the stylistic details of that time, a modern take on the peak lapels, knitted polo shirts and baggy, deconstructed pimp-style camel coats.
A melange of flocking, rubber detail and patterns take us back to the subway cars and intermix with the designer’s menswear fashion, being applied to knitwear and classic English fabrics: check, herringbone, tweed, a range of warm and winter tartans, sophisticated knitwear with 3-D stitches and rubber effects. Midnight blue overcoats that camouflage the wearer in the dark, comfort-fit cotton and wool trousers, brightly coloured leather accessories. All embellished with rubber detail reminiscent of the outlines of the graffiti at the heart of the designer’screative vision.
