Elena Velez

At Artechouse, where Elena Velez presented her fall collection, Leech, guests entered a dark room space and descended a deep flight of stairs into a former boiler room outfitted with screens to create an immersive digital experience. This was not a Dantean journey into purgatory, but a dive into a mythic nautical world. Silhouettes of a lighthouse and a many masted ship glowed on the screen/walls as light danced as off water on the floor, strewn with “rocks” as the sound of the ocean lapping the shore filled with the space which was soon filled with otherworldly creatures. “Building this very physical, tangible collection and then having it live within this very intangible, immaterial universe feels kind of interesting to me,” said the designer who was eager to return to a more theatrical format this season.

“Contentious female archetypes” are Velez’s hobbyhorse. Opening the show with scammer Anna Delvey wearing an ankle monitor was, to this viewer, a characteristically eye-roll-inducing provocation on the designer’s part, but she isn’t wrong in thinking that fashion’s portrayal of women is sorely lacking. This New York Fashion Week, for example, seems to be primarily directed toward a woman/influencer of “good taste,” whose persona is formed through a curation of likes as opposed to actions or beliefs. It’s a flat stereotype that has a narrow range. In contrast, Velez, in her show notes, declares not only that  “the age of the antihero is upon us, but that “the EV woman is both Eve and the Serpent—both the sailor and the siren.”   

Many would say Velez has positioned herself as an antihero as well. The designer has said she’s been misunderstood. The tide might be turning a bit in her direction however. Velez, citing Nosferatu and The Substance, believes there’s a shift happening: “Conceptually I’m just really fascinated with this cultural interpretation of body horror and thinking about women as horrifying, genuine other,” she said. “I’m seeing all of these different stories about women and their unfathomability as something that makes them strange and potentially sinister and scary.”  There’s no doubt these are scary times. And even those who can’t hear “the call of the void that tempts us towards the depths of the unknown,” the designer writes about, might feel they are being unwillingly pulled into it.  

This season Velez imagined the temptresses luring the unsuspecting into the dark or the deep falling into three  into  three distinct types, which she described in a pre-show interview. They are the Captain’s Daughter, representing “the more demure and virginal [woman], the kind of ethereal and sweet moments that we have in the brand.” The Land Walker, an “anti-Disney Ursula when she assumes Ariel’s voice and comes to the land to lure the sailor to the depths.” And the Leech, who Velez describes as being “anti immoral—just totally detached from the theory of ethics in total— [who] is this sort of viscous, oozy substance that is almost this incubative, but also corrosive, element that all of us have within us that can kind of build and protect and insulate, but also erode and digest and break down.”  It wasn’t all that evident which model fell into what category, which suggested that these types could also be understood as character traits that form a composite view of womanhood. 

Some of the promise of Velez’s early work resurfaced as the designer focused on clothes and  reinforced the autobiographical elements of her story—Velez’s mother is a ship captain. Certainly there was more range in the offering, saving it from falling into steampunk territory. Among the highlights was a black strapless minidress trimmed with white ruffles resembling sea foam, had an asymmetric hem, as if it had been pushed aside by a wave. A long, dark algae-green knit dress had a simple elegance, while a check jacket worn with army-green pants worn open to reveal undergarments; ditto the off the shoulder knit secured with a corselet and worn with a side-split black skirt. Also memorable were the pirate’s paper bag waisted pants. Ropes, netting, and metal hardware spoke to the nautical theme, and latex-dipped fabric created a wet-look. Keys hanging from a corset with hardware fastenings glistened like sunken treasure.  

The last time I was at Artechouse was for an event celebrating a successful Japanese anime series about a fictional band of “good” pirates searching for a treasure called the One Piece, from which the series takes its name. It seems worth mentioning not only because pirates and sirens share the same waters, but because it feels like Velez has taken a renegade’s approach to fashion. This season, however, she  seemed more inclined to sail with the fleet. She spoke about developing more “commercial” pieces, which might be understood as material manifestations of her desire to create “something that feels radically centrist”—an approach that seems far from Velez’s usual wheelhouse, especially as the brand, at this point the brand, is rather niche. It seems that Velez, like Luffy, the hero of One Piece, still hasn’t found what she’s searching for. “I think that I have a broader conceptual project that I’m trying to decipher and understand myself and kind of navigate the industry and figure out where there’s space for me and where my values align,” said the designer whose journey continues toward a yet unknown destination.