Willy Chavarria Men’s Spring 2019
Models running wind sprints and stretching in colorful soccer gear on the runway prior to the show created the ideal introduction for Willy Chavarria’s new collaboration with Danish soccer brand Hummel.
The collection was defined by the use of bright colors and long boxy silhouettes in shorts and tops that paid homage to the designer’s main line. His creative use of the Hummel logo and soccer uniform staples such as numbers and insignias turned them into streetwear-infused details.
The collaboration will also serve to offer sponsorships to New York City soccer players with documented and undocumented U.S. citizens offering support to immigrants, another key element of this season for Chavarria.
His spin on soccerwear served as part one of a two-part spring collection.
For his main line, Chavarria said he pulled from Latino culture of the early Aughts on the East and West Coasts. The “baggy silhouettes” from Venice and Culver City were juxtaposed with the “long rise pants tucked into Timberlands” that defined the urban landscape in the Bronx and Harlem in that era.
The nostalgia kicked into high gear with Chavarria’s take on Polo Sport references: upside-down American flags, yellow trenchcoats and the word America printed upside down on the front of sweatshirts.
There was also a “huge immigration influence” in the collection that Chavarria referenced in graphic details on T-shirts and hoodies.
The designer showed his social activist side by emblazoning a photograph of Maxine Waters, the longest-serving black woman in Congress, on the front of a T-shirt.
Her image “inspires me not to take s–t from people,” he said.
With this collection, that is unlikely to be a problem for Chavarria.
Launch Gallery: Willy Chavarria Men's Spring 2019
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