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NEW YORK, United States — Fifteen years ago this month, Rachel Comey staged her first runway show on the streets of Tribeca. "It was two days before 9/11 and I was very naive. I didn't know anything," she recalled on Wednesday morning at her Soho boutique, just moments after turning a New York City sidewalk into her runway.
The loose, DIY-approach to the production — her usual mix of friends and models walking in the clothes, interrupted briefly by an unknowing, chino-clad man on his way to work — confidently communicated Comey’s identity as a designer. She has long moved away from the seasonal concepts or overarching themes that can bog down a collection. Instead, individual pieces like the pleated, billowing silk jumpsuit in a daring violet, the chain-link pencil skirt and the fractured-floral quilted bomber illustrated her appreciation of — and masterful handle on — textiles.