One of the great joys of keeping up with fashion weeks is discovering up-and-coming designers and watching as they grow over the years. You start to feel like you’re a part of their story, even if you never bought or wore a single piece of theirs, because you were rooting for them the whole time. This year, one new(ish) designer who caught my eye was Christopher John Rogers and his Fall 2020 collection.
Rogers hails from Baton Rouge and was educated at the Savannah College of Art and Design, from which he recently graduated. Up until recently, he and his team were working out of his Brooklyn apartment – a feat, given his well-earned reputation for voluminous silhouettes (can you imagine all those yards of fabric heaped on tables and onto the floor of an NYC flat?! It conjures a fashion-Strega Nona image, doesn’t it?). After winning the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund last year, NBD, he was able to move to a proper studio and ride the momentum gained by dressing high-profile clients like Cardi B, Lizzo, the love of my life Tracee Ellis Ross, and oh, Michelle Freaking Obama.
[As an aside, Cardi B wore pieces from his senior thesis collection at Savannah College. That would be like your English thesis being Oprah’s August Book Club pick.]
Rogers’s clothes are epically scaled: they sweep, swish, and practically create their own Coriolis effect. They have a Scarlett O’Hara quality, made infinitely more righteous and delicious by the fact that Rogers is so rooted in the African American community (up yours, Margaret Mitchell!). He takes inspiration from sources as varied as the bright monochrome his hometown church’s Sunday best, the later works of Madame Grès, and trash bags (the way they crumple and roll in the wind, you know?).
“I don’t think that the way that you dress should make you sacrifice your personality, or your point of view, or necessarily say anything about your intelligence.” – Rogers via NPR
Christopher John Rogers’s Naysayers
He’s been criticized for creating an aesthetic that’s too feminine, or too loud, lacking a sophisticated, cohesive message in a way that implies amateurism. Those arguments, to me, are low-hanging fruit; it is easy, in our culture, to misidentify optimism as immaturity, or femininity as dimwitted frivolity. While Rogers is indeed young, and surely has much evolution ahead of him, I would encourage critics to re-examine those observations.
What he’s asking us to look at is our assumptions on who gets to take up space, who gets to be “loud,” who gets to enjoy high fashion. Most of his high-profile clients are Black women, people of enormous talent, intellect, and creative acumen. It is such a powerful, deeply feminist, counter-patriarchal move to create what I consider high art for these women who have contributed immeasurably to the construction of the American identity but are systematically undervalued (#thewagegapisreal). He’s saying, if you’re loud, be loud; if you’re taking up space, claim it; if you’re ultra-feminine, don’t you dare shrink yourself (no matter your gender).
He’s not doing anything new – it echoes what Pierpaolo Piccioli is doing over at Valentino, right? Big shapes, bold colors, oozing with traditionally feminine lines and flou, and the man is praised left, right, and sideways (as he deserves).
I’m not saying that Piccioli’s years of experience haven’t honed his talent in ways that Rogers has yet to encounter; after all, not only does the latter bring a uniquely American (and indeed, a uniquely “Rogers”) exuberance to his work, but he’s also fresh out of school. The man is green – let him be green! Celebrate his growth – because what he’s doing is important, especially in our times.
love,
Stig.
Info via Vogue, WWD, and NPR (linked in text).
