Underground New York Fashion Gets the Spotlight at a New Show at Pratt Manhattan Gallery

If anxiety over independent labels’ ability to survive in 2024 New York was reaching a fever pitch outside the gallery, inside there was a feeling of an alternate New York Fashion Week. A group of looks from Chris Peters’s CDLM project greeted people as they walked in, including a printed cotton dress “accessorized” with a vintage black tulle evening gown, reworked to hang from one shoulder as one would carry a bag. Further along, there was a dress from Amanda McGowan and Mattie Barringer’s Women’s History Museum with a back panel and train that listed the names of the show’s designers in alphabetical order, as well as some of Vaquera’s “greatest hits,” including the bulbous plaid ruffled dress with a car commercial-sized white bow from fall 2019, or the credit card slip dress from spring 2018.

And there were also more conceptual works, such as chairs from Martine Syms and an installation/performance by Camilla Carper in which the artist moved the contents of their closet to the gallery. (Carper also embarked on an interesting project during NYFW where they attempted to follow the schedule of a different season, showing up to each venue at the allotted time and recording their observations.) The work of designers Claire McKinney and Sophie Andes-Gascon, who design as SC103, was hung on a wall, which highlighted the importance of color and texture in their work.

“These are a group of artists who paradoxically don’t have any shared aesthetic coherence, but rather share more structural, artistic behaviors between them,” said Linde. “We’re trying to pull together these designers that have kind of reshaped New York Fashion Week from the fringes.”