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PARIS, France — Like many other young, New York-based designers, Heron Preston has chosen to show in Paris. However, the collection he presented today was very New York: straight-forward versions of the trends that have come to define the way "kids these days" dress: cargo pants, parachute-string shorts, boob tubes.
Like many of his peers, Preston is incorporating more tailoring into his répertoire and made some interesting choices when it came to construction. A white-padded suit was built in partnership with the architecture firm Dattner and inspired by the jagged-edge building they created on the West Side Highway for the New York City Department of Sanitation. (The connection is that he first made a name for himself in 2016 designing a collection inspired by the uniforms of sanitation workers.)
“Streetwear, for me, is outside of the walls of a very conventional way of thinking,” he said backstage before the show. “When you look outside the boundaries, that’s the space that’s really interesting to me.”
Preston is exploring big issues — environmental, social, economical. The problem, though, is that the final product simply doesn’t convey the depth of his ideas. He makes cute clothes and fun sneakers; belt’s with a “pull” tab, Gortex overcoats printed with the Gortex logo. Sexy jeans and nice-fitting utility jackets.
But what’s new, what’s “Heron Preston” about them? In order to move forward, Preston needs to figure this out.
