America, the beautiful. Public School’s Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne put out a collection this season at New York Fashion Week dedicated to their country from sea to shining sea. Or maybe more accurately, From Manhattan city street to great plains field to Los Angeles basketball court. Indeed, with models wearing clever red caps proclaiming “Make America New York” and fuzzy white moccasins, you knew this wasn’t a standard star-spangled version of the United States.
Looking to bring together the red and the blue—literally, in the case of some patriotic paisleys, and geopolitically, with urban streetwear and farmers’ plaids—Public School found a bipartisan approach with the most chic denim on denim looks for some and deconstructed suiting with open shoulders for others. This was anything, though, but a compromise.
Somewhere between a hoodie screen printed with a close up of Michael Jordan’s face and a mean set of cranberry colored jackets, you could tell that this folksy-varsity hybrid was exactly what the country needed. Or at least the fashion industry.
