This week, the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist Angelo Urrutia turned up in Paris with a few noteworthy ideas about honoring French couture, the idea of America, and authorship. “I love American things, from Coca Cola to rock and roll to sports jackets and yoga pants,” the designer said during a walk-through of his fall collection. “American style is about day-to-day life, a solution design.”
That being the case, he figured, why not elevate everyday staples with couture-level fabrics like silk organza with sequins and feathers, jacquard weaves and virgin wool silk? What might happen if the preciousness of couture was re-spun into something more accessible… and ultimately American?
Hero worship, notably of Yves Saint Laurent, found him revisiting the safari jacket, the Mondrian dress, and naval jackets through an American lens. The saharienne, for example, now has side-slit pockets, and the Mondrian inspiration got re-pieced on a bomber jacket in silk fil coupé. It also led to some pretty neat experiments, like tailored sweatpants in baby camel, a jacket with mismatched buttons that skewed Tyrolean by way of Rue
Cambon, and trompe l’oeil jersey taken upscale either with a herringbone print or a debossed laminated weave that looks like intrecciato, even close up. Similarly, a leather coat was printed with herringbone, and another was debossed to look like denim. Both are
workhorse pieces that also look cool (the right leather jacket, the designer noted, is to a New York kid what the right car is to grown-ups).
One of his biggest tasks, he added, is challenging the notion of streetwear as the world now perceives it, a concept that he considers as loaded as it is overused. One solution: sourcing vintage varsity jackets from all over, picking them apart and reconstructing them into
one-offs with croc-embossed sleeves. Another: shortening a tail coat and adding side slits “so it can dance.” Ultimately, Urrutia is doing things his way, American style, referencing the reference of the reference of the reference to shape a new language. It’s the specialness in craft that makes 4SDesigns one to watch.
