Christian Cowan channels ‘childhood creativity’ at NYFW: ‘We’ve gone quite cuckoo’
He’s not playing around.
Christian Cowan transformed The Glasshouse into a joyous playground for his New York Fashion Week show by leaning into the childlike wonderment of “playing dress up.”
Models paraded in mini skirts made from high heels, garments composed of lingerie and even a bubblegum frock constructed from hyperrealistic silicone that feature Cowan’s own bite marks.
“We’ve gone quite cuckoo and crazy and I got into the DNA of the brand,” Cowan told The Post. “It’s got this very uncommercial, childhood creativity feeling.”
In front of the star-studded front row — which featured guests such as Sam Smith, Anna Delvey, Ke$ha and Cole Escola – models in voluminous wigs with towering high pony-tails showed off Cowan’s latest collection on Friday evening.
Sky-high stilettos were fashioned into tiny skirts and bikini tops, a strapless frock was made entirely from satin, baby pink lingerie and fuchsia feather plumes created a peacock-like effect, creating a hot pink halo behind one model in a patent mini dress.
The show-stopping number, however, was Cowan’s bubblegum dress, made from multi-colored silicone that featured his bite marks to give it a chewed effect.
Most surprisingly from Cowan, there was only one sparkly number in the entire collection — a silver chrome mini dress with a high-heel hemline and a glittering jacket to match.
“There’s not one crystal anywhere in this collection, and not one sequenced either, which is outrageous behavior by me,” Cowan said.
It’s a stark deviation from recent collections — the fall/winter 2024 catwalk featured cigarette-puffing models wearing sparkling evening wear, and last season told a murder mystery story on a waterfront runway.
“People definitely love sparkle from me, but I enjoy always giving myself something that is not what we usually do to work on,” he said.
For instance, he added, he’s “never really been a polkadot girl” — so, he constructed an array of garments that featured the pattern, such as a dress with punched-out polkadots to reveal another color fabric beneath.
He also wanted to be more experimental with this collection that was, in part, inspired by his late business partner, who he called “absolutely eccentric” and said was a “diehard supporter” of his work.
“So the collection is very her. It’s very extravagant, it’s very fabulous and flamboyant,” he explained. “It’s just such a nice, meaningful homage to someone that we all adored.”
But the revamped look is also part of Cowan’s brand overhaul. While his strictly “commercial” looks will still be available through e-commerce and retail partners, his runways are now dedicated to more creativity and experimentation.
He’s calling it a return to the “purity of creativity.”
“I have memories of being a kid, playing with my mom’s shoes and her clothes and drawing on things and gluing things together,” he said, adding that he’s revived that sense of play “but with the atelier behind it.”
“Polkadots and crayons and paints — it all feels like the things that every human, whether they pull into a creative profession or not, every human had that interaction when they were a child of using those types of materials, so I wanted to bring that feeling to everyone who sees the clothes.”
