Nicholas Raefski Fall/Winter 2022 Collection at New York Fashion Week
Fall/Winter 2022 Collection
Meet Me By The Bleachers
Nicholas Raefski’s sophomore collection “Meet Me By The Bleachers” is inspired by notions of false nostalgia – yearnings for something you never actually owned nor experienced.
“Going to high school in the 1970s is something I have always felt nostalgic for, despite being born a few decades too late to have experienced it. High school is all about archetypes and stereotypes; being put in a box. But when we grow up these boxes vanish, we find we cannot be bound by one group or idea. I enjoy the challenge of taking something that I know little about from the past, thinking about it in the present, and designing it for the future.”
The 11 Look collection, divided into 4 archetypal groups – the jocks, the nerds, the punks and the hippies – coalesces to bring new life to kindred classics. Key pieces include a “lava lamp” puffer jacket; a “Dad’s suit jacket” (Nicholas looking back to his dad’s prom pictures, imagining it not to look like it rolled out from the 1700s. Sorry Dad!); a “Mick Jagger button down” (a reimagined shirt version of the iconic “Rolling Stone Tee”); a fusion of a pair of classic leather rock pants with flowy disco pants Nicholas calls “Star pants”. Each group pairs with shoes from Puma, Converse and Doc Martens – three brands reminiscent of the time depicted that too have evolved.
When we become adults, we look back at our youth with a false eye. The past comforts and always seems better than it was, and any pain fades with time. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling that shape our lives, even if it is not personal. With his sophomore collection, Nicholas Raefski borrows from nostalgia to narrate an archetypal tale.