Phipps Marks L.A. Move With Big Sky Movie Ranch Fall Runway Show
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Designer Spencer Phipps has found his spiritual home in L.A., where he relocated from Paris a year ago to rebrand his “weird Americana” fashion label, Phipps.
The Parsons grad, who previously worked at Dries Van Noten and Marc Jacobs, and was shortlisted for his own label for the LVMH Prize in 2019, returned to the West Coast last summer.
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“The brand being so American-centric, it made sense to come back to the U.S. versus having this lost-in-translation thing happening where I wasn’t in any conversation,” he said earlier this week. “I wasn’t doing the Paris fashion thing because that wasn’t what we were trying to do, and I wasn’t included in the American vernacular because we were in France. So it became confusing, even from a marketing perspective.”
Over the past few months, he’s developed a new visual brand language and logo, a new social media feed, and a new strategy to show in-season, which led to the runway presentation Tuesday night at the famed Big Sky Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, just north of L.A.
The dusty Western-themed ranch, used as a filming location for “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Transformers,” “Babylon,” and many other film and TV projects, was the perfect backdrop for Phipps’ outdoorsy, grunge- and punk-tinged Western Americana collection, which is selling on his website and in stores including Departmento and Ron Herman in L.A.
“I just thought that was such a cool opportunity you can’t do anywhere else, and we really took advantage of being here, renting cowboy boots from Warner Brothers, and filling in all the gaps with cool movie props,” he explained of the setup for the show.
Phipps fits into the rugged outdoor genre alongside Filson, Carhartt and Double RL, “but we’re a bit more directional,” the designer said. “Silhouettes are updated to be a bit more contemporary, a bit exaggerated, there’s always a bit of a humor,” he said, noting that he’s also launched denim for the season, including a very cool pair of chap jeans crafted from upcycled leather pieces and vintage denim.
The brand’s affinity for vintage and upcycling resonates with L.A., which is one of the world vintage capitals, and played out in the collection in the deadstock expedition-style polar fleeces, and upcycled sports jerseys, hunter checked flannel boxer shorts and pajama pants with Phipps logo waistbands. A Gold Label vintage collection of higher-end curated pieces was also shown, including patchwork plaid Woolrich jackets.
“It’s also a hippie thing, repurposing and reusing…my family was all like that,” said Phipps, a San Francisco native, of the West Coast inclination. “I’ve been vintage shopping since I was a teenager, and in my other jobs, doing it for research. But it’s nice now to get to incorporate it into my work.”
Jeans with the brand’s D-rings, studs and a low-key logo on the pockets also looked good, as did leafy camo “butch floral” print work shirts, as he described them, T-shirts with the slogan “Nature Loves Courage” alongside humorous comic book-inspired graphics of heroes and dinosaurs on the range, and rhinestone-studded distressed bomber jackets. He also showed eight women’s looks, including plaid flannel slip dresses, canvas utility skirts and denim minis, cotton Western patterned blanket cardigans and bra tops.
Prices are in the contemporary range with boxers at $45, jeans at around $285 and jackets around $425, and special vintage pieces are in the four figures. Phipps will continue to show the label in Paris for wholesale buyers, and have public-facing hangout moments at home in L.A..
“I don’t want to be stuck on a schedule, we’ll do it when we do it. It’s a show this time, it might be a movie night next time,” he said. “I’ve tried to separate the commercial side from the press side, which is about creating moments and community.”
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