Vaquera really just resurrected the Comme des Fuckdown cap

Opening up Paris Fashion Week, Vaquera flashed back over ten years, transforming its cavernous concrete showspace into a dingy NYC nightclub fit out with blaring music and flashing lights. Inviting guests back to the height of mid-aughts fashion, the New York label resurrected one of 2010’s Tumblr’s most coveted items: streetwear designer Russ Karablin's graphic Commes des Fuckdown slogan cap. First popularised around 2012 when A$AP Mob wore a beanie emblazoned with the phrase [the piece was originally a reissued design, first released ten years prior], Karablin’s ironic, word-swapped take on Comme Des Garçons’ logo took off through the streetwear crowd before slowly fizzling out of the fashion scene – that is, until its unexpected 2023 comeback.

Using this season as a love letter to the messy, hedonistic party era of indie sleaze, Vaquera’s SS24 offering saw golden stretchy tops and torn-up cargos topped-off with the “Comme” cap, XXL white shirting and stripy ties that enveloped models’ bodies and dragged across the venue floor, glittering fishnet jumpsuits paired with scribbled-on “I heart NY” shoulder bags, and grungy acid-wash cropped denim jackets and mom jeans. Elsewhere, dangling fur earrings hinted at the return of another 2010s obsession: feathers tacked into strands of hair, headbands, and earrings [for reference, see Mary-Kate Olsen’s 2010 night out look – skinny leather trousers, a big fur jacket, and a peacock-feather headband, all immortalised through messy night-out flash photography].

With makeshift Cobrasnake-esque pap cameras illuminating the showspace and Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth” blaring through Vaquera’s speakers – a much-welcomed change after a series of high-pitched screeches – models clomped down the runway in puffed-up, paint-splattered dresses, camo-printed cropped tops, and ruched black mini-dresses. Meanwhile, backless trench coats revealed lingerie sets underneath, grey t-shirts were knotted-up at the breasts, black maxi skirts came plastered with lacy pink underwear, and bra tops were crafted from strings of tinted sunglasses lenses. 

Topping off the deliberately messy offering was long, furry trapper hats, massive rosette chokers, and flattened berets – plus, a series of chunky fur-lined boots [all of which were marked with tiny retail tags reading $19.99] created as a collab with Ugg. With grainy digital camera photos seeing a resurgence across Gen Z and indie sleaze queen Sky Ferreira booking her long-awaited first tour since her Tumblr years – perhaps Jeffrey Campbell’s lace-up Lita boots will be the next 2010s accessory brought back to life for SS24.