Initial reaction:

“Welcome gypsies and genderless!” was the emcee’s opening line at the brand’s “Cirque D’ Sport” AW15 show. Real New York street entertainers, dancers and acrobats paraded onto the dance floor to perform – decked out in wild athletic ensembles.

‘Cirque D’ Sport’:

The Gypsy Sport circus is in town! Gymnasts bent and backflipped onto the runway wearing crushed velvet pants and sport bras. A model who resembled Carrot Top held a breakdancing freeze for the cameras, while a muscular male dancer slid effortlessly up and down a pole onstage, and a vogue-er moved like liquid mercury across the dance floor. Exuberant, over-the-top and streetwise: the label dared to go for a full-on nu-bohemian, trashcycling circus. There were nose cuffs dripping with feathers, oversized boxing shorts, printed harem trousers, two-tone harlequin braids, an umbrella hat (there’s never a shortage of eccentric hats at a Gypsy Sport show), a denim vest made out of four separate pairs of jeans and a blouse artfully crafted from what could have been striped cotton bedsheets. It was designer Rio Uribe’s very specific, cleverly pieced together reappropriation of former garments and his knack for taking “low” to a higher plane, that made his vision so compelling.

A merry band of misfits:

“The circus was about my friends and about New York City. I was inspired a lot by the street performers, I like that people take their art to the street rather than the commercial route because it’s a lot easier to bring it straight to the public,” explains Uribe. “We specifically cast models who had acrobatic talents and then the look lent itself so nicely to a circus theme because we used a lot of stripes – we mixed up prints and the silhouette was kind of loose and clownish. I wanted to show that the clothes could move and that it's not all strictly for the runway.” The circus program was emceed live by the camp and kooky Reverend Rome and styled by the incredible Lester Garcia – both integral members of the Gypsy Sport team. The soundtrack was a thumping mix created by the Doom Dab DJs – a brand new, budding music company from New York. “It’s contemporary, it’s house and also has a little bit of a Caribbean vibe, I just love it. I asked them to give me a 15 minute mix and they came up with the most perfect thing.”