



1 / 17 Chevron Chevron Photo: Courtesy of Section 8

This Monday, guests at the David Lewis Gallery in Chinatown were treated to the surprising debut of a great new fashion line: Section 8, a collection of working-girl basics (pencil skirts, button-downs, leather blazers), as well as a few billowing halter tops, done in fun and unlikely iterations. What was not revealed, exactly, was who made these curious clothes: the design team behind the brand has chosen to remain mostly anonymous for their first season, billing themselves as a collective as opposed to a singular voice. Vogue.com can confirm a couple of people involved, including the young London designer Ryohei Kawanishi and Hood By Air stylist Akeem Smith, who said over the phone this afternoon that the decision to remain a mystery was a pointed and political one. “We just lived through an era in which getting too much attention made someone the actual president,” Smith says. “And so, we’re like, 'we don’t want attention.'”

What is making people talk, though, is the choice to have the models, cast by the downtown agency Midland, walk the runway with actual fish in their mouth, purchased at an aquarium on Delancey Street on the Lower East Side. “They’re koi fish,” says Smith. “We were thinking about the idiom ‘a fish out of water’—about when you’re in new territory, new surroundings. About how everyone is starting this new career path and fashion label together.” Smith says the clothes were inspired by, of all things, what they imagined an intern working on the Trump campaign might wear—a wardrobe (a suit jacket as a dress, for instance) for the new conservative era dawning in America. But he also says he was influenced by the lowbrow fashions that he finds way more interesting than much of what exists in high-end boutiques and on runways. The team turned a Fubu sweater, for example, into a beautiful skirt. “Taking things that people think are funny and cheap and making them serious,” is how Smith explains the mission. Whatever the inspiration, all of fashion wants to know more—and it looks like they’ll get the chance, as Smith can confirm that Section 8 will definitely be having a second season.