Ed Hardy Turns Back the Clock Two Decades at First Runway Show in L.A.
In case there was any doubt that the 2000s revival is in full swing, last night in Los Angeles Ed Hardy held its first runway show and it was a parade of Y2K fashion.
Creative director Kevin Christiana turned back the clock 20 years with a collection of 2000s staples, from velour tracksuits paired with trucker hats and furry boots to graphic T-shirts and denim miniskirts, low-rise pants accompanied with a whale tail and, of course, tattoo-sleeve shirts. There were also blazers with tube tops, an Ed Hardy take on a butterfly top, muscle T-shirts, sequin boxing shorts and wallet chain-strewn shorts paired fishnet tights — all harkening back to the era of maximalist mismatched fashion and indie sleeze.
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The timing couldn’t be better. “This is our bright shining moment right now, and we’re so excited for this day,” Christiana exclusively told WWD backstage. “We’ve been working on it for months and it’s going to be a punk version of what Ed Hardy looks like, using Ed Hardy’s incredible library of tattoo artwork.”
The collection was paired with beauty looks that straddled the 2000s and the present. There were “intense, edgy smokey eyes” juxtaposed with a burgundy lip — “the color of the season” as New York Makeup Academy’s Claire Perez put it while backstage. Meanwhile the hair consisted of “messy” and “lived-in” beach curls, according to the Academy of Hairdressing’s Alex Yarber. “There’s a nod to the decade, but it’s so modernized,” Yarber told WWD. “It’s the rebirth of something new.
That modernity could be seen among the crowd, which included a mix of influencers and reality TV stars like “Love Island’s” Serena Page, who wore a belt as a bandeau top with a duster jacket and an Ed Hardy maxiskirt, and Leah Kateb in an Ed Hardy denim miniskirt and a leather vest — both of whom were toddlers during Ed Hardy’s heyday, when celebrities from Rihanna to Kim Kardashian, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Dennis Rodman stepped out in the brand’s signature trucker hats and graphic T-shirts. (Ed Hardy first opened its doors with a brick-and-mortar store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in 2004, the same year it was founded by Christian Audigier. The company was later acquired by Iconix Brand Group Inc. in 2011, four years before Audigier passed away at 57 from cancer.)
With a new generation mining the 2000s for style cues — and designers like Miuccia Prada taking note with her hotly coveted Miu Miu micro miniskirt — the runway show marks a full circle moment for Ed Hardy. “It’s been long overdue, and we were finally trying to tell the Ed Hardy story the way that we wanted to tell it,” Christiana told WWD. “We’re celebrating with him. Ed Hardy’s a true American artist, and he exudes what a true American artist should be. So this is very special.”
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