What does an Alexander Wang dude do during the summer? This year, Wang’s guy is the surfing type, haunting Venice Beach in clothes designed for days and nights around the bonfire. Some of the pieces will be familiar to fans from the brand’s surf-core Spring 2017 womenswear show, namely the tie-dyed sweatshirts scattered with patches of buxom ’80s babes, but there are plenty more variations on the elevated Spicoli theme for his Spring menswear. Here, board shorts came embroidered with bikini-clad ladies, while black jackets were stitched with Girls. Reversed koi fish prints echoed the chill vibes of a Pacific coast dweller, whereas proper pullover anoraks and mixed-plaid shirts felt more suited to the North Atlantic bad-boy type. The staples of an Alexander Wang collection—beanies, stripes, leopard prints—persisted in ways new and old.
Wang is a master of isolating and riffing on subcultures. Over the years he’s astutely elevated the mall goth, the moto girl, the under-the-bleachers troublemaker, and so many more American tropes. His newest reworkings, while savvy and commercially viable, didn’t necessarily get the heart racing. They’re familiar. What did create excitement was a series of rugby shirts made of heavy sport-technical knits. They were preppy, athletic, subversive, all-American. At this moment I don’t know a single man who owns something like this or would even think to want it, but I bet in a month’s time they’ll have taken over New York City’s Grand Street. That’s genius.
