WINNIE NEW YORK
AUTUMN/WINTER 2021 COLLECTION & FILM, INTERSECTIONS
IN COLLABORATION WITH TAU LEWIS
WINNIE New York’s besotted love for African culture is a social affair. This season it shepherds, as much as it fashions, a collection for a cast and a market, driven by the aura of community, and one invariably interested in Black discourse.
Founded in 2018 by Idris Balogun with clothing entirely manufactured in New York, the label is an homage to his late grandmother, Princess Winifred Dademu. A bold reverence for Black artists and 1960 (also known as the “Year of Africa” when communities rapidly evolved from colonialism and flourished) profoundly details the brand’s technical inspiration for Autumn/Winter 2021: a spirit of cheerfulness and dandy ease.
The collection is in collaboration with self-taught artist Tau Lewis who employs methods such as carving and assemblage to build sculptural portraits and quilts. The collaboration is an essence of Lewis’ work, which is informed by her surrounding environment; she constructs out of found, gathered, and recycled materials from Toronto, New York, and outside of her family’s home in Negril, Jamaica. The purposive act of repurposing the materials recalls resourcefulness in diasporic contexts, linking it back to the post-colonial era.
WINNIE’s Autumn/Winter 2021 offerings, which continue to adapt to the times we live in, are in constant expansion mode. Balogun considered a narrative of freedom, a far-flung concept that society has been deprived of due to the pandemic. The reassertion of house signature staples bestows modernity: from turbo-sized coats, sculpted gilets to fluidity in knee-length gowns. Plays on function, subtly distorted shapes, and a rooted color palette are a further exploration – and assertion – of the brand’s meticulous fabrications and hand-craftsmanship, elements that aim to bring back meaningful clothing and amplify the lexicon of humble luxury ready-to-wear.
The Autumn/Winter 2021 collection aims to eulogize its customers with a contained poise that is entirely its own while weaving into its seams, the repurposed and purposeful eye of Lewis.
Balogun and Lewis documented their creative process through a special film project titled, Intersections.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH INTERSECTIONS
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