Earlier this month, Rachel Comey threw a party for a milestone that snuck up on her, the 10th anniversary of her Crosby Street store. Comey is a New York fashion stalwart, nimbly tweaking and adjusting—and growing—her collections, as designers who’ve enjoyed more exposure and industry fame over the years have struggled in this post-post-pandemic retail slump. The proof is in the San Francisco store she opened last year, and in the people who poured into the street outside of her NoLita shop on the evening of June 5. There are lines all over SoHo of shoppers waiting to spend money inside luxury stores; Comey’s crowd was there for the vibes.
That’s much cooler, don’t you think? Comey has never lacked for cool, and her new pre-spring collection (the term she prefers over resort or cruise) has plenty of it. Consider a bolero-style jacket embroidered with flowers and chain fringe, or a going-out top in coral pink silk with skinny black paillettes stitched here-and-there, or a honey-colored shearling jacket (not pictured in the lookbook, unfortunately) flecked with silver leaf. On the more hard-working side, she showed pantsuits in an array of non-traditional materials, and said she’d be wearing the retro-ish brown striped version all season. There was also a lot of denim. Jeans were treated to a waxy finish, and acid wash shades of brown and gray-blue were cut into subtly sexy nipped waist dresses.
Another thing that’s cool: booking models of multiple ages, making obvious signs of aging a focal point of your images, and not making a big deal of it, but treating it rather matter of factly. On the subject of growth, resort is the first time she’s designed and shown sneakers. Made in Peru, they’re a lo-fi alternative to the performance sneakers we see everywhere now. You’ll be seeing women padding around in them at her next street party.
