Stella Jean produced her new assortment with Haitian artisans, lots of whom have misplaced their houses, workshops, and sense of stability, although not their spirit, to crime. “These are my Buffalo Troopers,” Jean stated, borrowing Bob Marley’s metaphor to explain her the ladies she labored with on the venture. Shot throughout the town of Cap-Haïtien, and mixing the designer’s Italian-Haitian roots along with her dedication to cooperative design practices, Aesthetic Coup d’État, as she referred to as the brand new providing, is her manner of giving again to the nation that has given her a lot.
The gathering stems from a mirrored image on uniformity and autonomy, particularly Haiti’s historic relationship with Western costume codes and the phenomenon of secondhand clothes exports, identified regionally as ‘Pepe.’ Staples of Eurocentric masculine dressing had been reimagined by Jean: Striped cotton poplin shirts featured embellished bandanas on the entrance, whereas beige tailor-made trenches turned canvases for hand-painted, colourful accents. Hats had been a key function; the standout is a contemporary tackle the normal elongated Haitian headpiece, handcrafted the night time earlier than the shoot by Michel Chataigne, considered one of Haiti’s most revered designers. Whereas shade performed a framing function, silhouettes had been sharp but beneficiant, usually cinched with seen belts. Alongside the outsized hats, golden Creole earrings–giant and spherical–symbolized resilience, energy, and identification.
Greater than a set, this was a cross-cultural capsule grounded in Jean’s core methodology: “It may be a megaphone for individuals who reside in one of many poorest international locations… Possibly vogue could be one thing extra once more, one thing that helps somebody keep open, seen, and alive.”