Hood By Air to stage ‘shoppable’ show in LA

Anarchic luxury streetwear label Hood By Air has announced that it will be staging a show in Los Angeles as part of two-day fashion and music showcase, MADE LA. HBA will join Moschino and Tyler, The Creator’s label Golf Wang which are already slated to show.

This season, the brand is adopting at “see now, buy now” model, meaning that the collection will be available to pre-order during the show and available to purchase from its website a month later.

But this isn’t for the same reason as other designers, such as Burberry and Tom Ford. “We want to start connecting with the customer directly, but not in a DTC – direct-to-customer – attitude,” HBA founder and creative director Shayne Oliver says in an interview with US Vogue. “I would rather create my own way of speaking to my customer as opposed to being a part of fashion’s reformation of itself.”

In this interview, Olivier also gives us a hint of what we can expect from the collection, describing it as “everyday survival gear”. “It’s a mixture of everyday survival gear and actual survivor gear,” he explains. “That’s very much the vibe.”

This is a step away from last season when, in a show entitled “Pilgrim”, Oliver explored the idea of transience and transmigration and sent models stumbling down the catwalk in stiletto heels, rubber waders, barcoded baggage tags and black bustiers made from the plastic used to wrap baggage at the airport.

This season, Oliver says he and his team are looking to focus on the performance aspect of what they do. Apparently, he’s enlisted LA-based electronic musician Sean Bowie to perform at the event (which won’t be a runway show in the traditional sense), surrounded by friends and collaborators dressed in the collection.

“I feel like, you know, you sit down at a runway show, and it’s cute and it’s cool, but it doesn’t necessarily bring too much to the table as far as culture is concerned and people having experiences outside of the internal editors and stylists,” says Oliver. “I want to start creating experiences that speak more to the customers.”

Tickets for MADE LA are available to purchase here.