There was no overarching inspiration at Daniel Silver and Steven Cox’s Duckie Brown this season. The collection is a reflection of Cox’s pure, undiluted sense of color and shape. On the walls inside their West Village studio, loose leaf papers were taped to the wall, each one bearing an abstract expressionist croquis, some more immediately recognizable as clothes than others. A gold shape with a slight drape sat atop a black rectangle with a rounded top; while a bold magenta long sleeve jacket floated between two draped gold shapes above and below, anchored by another magenta rectangle.
“I think the thing that’s most important is this,” Cox said. “I don’t think I have done anything that is so close [to the sketches]. I mean, it’s almost like a mirror.” His croquis have no bodies—there are no heads, no arms, no legs, nothing. It makes sense. Duckie Brown may be a “menswear brand” by trade, but the clothes are for whoever wants to wear them. (On the mini-moodboard this season were images of Kristen Stewart and Jarvis Cocker, both wearing suits.)
The suit remains the foundation from which the Duckie Brown universe emerges, it’s just that everything about it is available for experimentation. A tailored two-button jacket worn with extra-wide, all-around pleated trousers in beige glen plaid Japanese cotton is super light and yet has the ability to hold shape and volume—almost like a ballgown skirt. A tuxedo shirt is made entirely from the piqué fabric traditionally used on just the “bib” part, and has 16 (functional) shiny gold buttons down the front furthering the maximalist vision. And an oversized button-down shirt and high waisted wide-legged trousers in the same material has already found a home with a customer in Chicago.
“I think there is something in here that is a fantasy,” added Cox. An outlier statement in a season where other designers have been talking about creating everyday clothes for their customers. The difference, of course, is that Cox and Silver know exactly who their customers are; they personally greet them in their studio, they answer their DMs on Instagram. So when they speak of fantasies, they know exactly which ones they are fulfilling.