Public School designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne have their fingers on the pulse of culture. For these two, it’s not just about clothes. Public School, an ApparelMagic client, is their laboratory for testing advanced fashion and sharing it with the world. This season, that meant midriffs, sheer outerwear, and harnesses everywhere.
Starting with the first look down the runway, an oversize plaid shirt with one side covered over with convenience store plastic bag prints like “Come Again” and safety disclaimers, you could tell this was another of their bids to combine scene-stealing fashion with a political message. The designers combined the fabrics (denim, nylon, and cotton jersey) of utilitarian workwear with the shapes (baggy pants, hoodies, and crop tops) of streetwear and came up with everything great about fashion today.
Heavy on the proletariat vibes, even Public School’s latest collaboration, seen in the collection’s blinding white activewear, was with Air Jordan, much more accessible than the European luxury brands some of their peers have teamed up with. That’s not to say that anything was lacking on the glamorous side of things, however. You can find in the collection a leather corset belt and a green ruffled cocktail dress, but in true Public School fashion, they were styled with a denim Canadian tuxedo and a sweatshirt, respectively.
