Thaddeus O’Neil Sends Bloody Vampire Surfers Down the Runway For His First Show
Three models on the runway at the Thaddeus O’Neil fashion show. Photography by Monet Lucki
The show began with a clap of thunder and the sound of storms, and the models came out with bloody noses. The first three picked up instruments and started plunking out an ominous Dick Dale-style tune. In his first show at New York’s Menswear Fashion Week, Thaddeus O’Neil presented two dozen spring looks that were a surfing safari on LSD.
Backstage, O’Neil described his theme as as “vampire surf” — “I want to darken what surf is and brighten what vampires are” — like the philosophy student he used to be, and it would seem pretentious if the clothes weren’t so much fun.
Two models on the runway at the Thaddeus O’Neil fashion show. Photography by Monet Lucki
There were baja shirts and short-sleeve sweaters with beautifully crafted open weaves and tanks, stripes and florals remixed with interesting fabrications: Board shorts out of scarf material or raw silk. A recurring pattern, stamped on shorts and shirts, was a block print by the artist Hugo Guinness, showing pineapples, palm trees and cowboys shooting Indians. A stereotypical Hawaiian shirt floral print found its way onto Doc Martens. There were gossamer-thin silver and gold overcoats made of Japanese silk, and a blue collarless version that Peggy Olsen might have worn, styled with jams. O’Neil has a loopily intellectual commitment to fabrics, instead of just slapping a print on things and calling it a day, which makes his work exciting in motion.
O’Neil is pushing the envelope of things-guys-actually-would-wear, and doing it with an element of WTF? It’s not androgynous more than it draws on what masculinity has already become: A crazy hybrid of references. As O’Neil’s morose and occasionally bloody models exited the stage, the show closed with the oldie “When You’re Strange,” which might seem to be over-egging the batter, to everyone except the no-fucks-to-give fashionable young men whom the clothes are inspired by. O’Neil’s aesthetic is the kind of studied artistic casualness a wide swath of guys strive for nowadays. Surfing isn’t exactly known for its subversiveness, but he’s pulling it off.
Related: Meet Fashion’s New Darling: Surfer & Menswear Designer Thaddeus O’Neil
Related: Todd Synder Takes Us To The Italian Riviera For Spring 2016
