Leggo His Logo: Alexander Wang Spring 2014

Alexander Wang will surely go IPO one day, but it’s never too early to start slapping his name on everything. Logomania was the message of his spring collection at Pier 94 today, an exercise in retro-style branding — because, have you heard of a little thing called 90s redux?

Essentially Wang went back to his roots after last season’s sensational, sculptural offering. While not exactly skipping back to the playground, he took a course markedly different from his haute-minded work at Balenciaga. So back to the street he went, and just in case anyone didn’t recognize him there, he put his logo and his name and his initials everywhere.

Rather subtly, unlike the 90s, Wang presented his version of logomania to a fame-conscious crowd that included Courtney Love and Kanye West (of course Kanye; the man immortalized him, rather un-ironically, in the lyric “Spending everything on Alexander Wang,” from the song New Slaves on his recent album). His full name was spelled out in embroidered letters on elastic belts; his last name ran up laser-cut elbow-length gloves; and his initials could be found in the unlikeliest of places, for example stitched on short skirts (almost everything was short, very short). Several sweatshirts had emblazoned on them the exact Parental Advisory warning stamped on explicit records. They will surely appeal to the rapper-as-designer set.

A variety of beautiful coats will be the envy of serious fashion folks and those who can afford to look like it. And there were several other standouts, like boxer shorts worn with men’s starchy work shirt — French cuffs and all — and a denim-like jacket peeled back to reveal a spaghetti-strapped skimpy bra top just begging to be in an explicit music video, or in a walk-in closet in Calabasas.

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