Vaquera had money on its mind this season. The clothes that designers Bryn Taubensee and Patric Dicaprio sent storming down the runway were skin-baring and sexy, mixed with elements of workwear, military toughness and banknote prints. There were track suits with poppers, bullet bras and drop-crotch denim jeans. Slouchy trousers were worn with money bedecked cummerbunds. Skirts were cut into swinging renditions of chaps and worn over thongs with garters. A duet of graphic, laser-printed button-ups with coordinating ties were particularly striking with one being spattered with dollar bills and the other portraying a decadent bouquet of red roses.
Tops left little to the imagination; think Titty Twister T-shirts (where the fabric is twisted and gathered at the nipples) in black or shimmering leopard print and a bodysuit, rightfully named the Tits Out Leotard due to the spherical cut outs at the bust that blatantly exposed both breasts – Regina George-style… if she were into BDSM.
Teeny tiny waistcoats and a clownish Mona Lisa Muscle Tee were worn with what the brand called ‘donut skirts’ – no, they weren’t dipped in powdered sugar (though one was dipped in sequins), but they were Vaquera’s take on hip-jutting panniers.
Sporadic swaths of faux fur appeared in the shape of padded shrugs or incarnations of softened ‘fencing masks’ with fishnet mesh in place of the steel – uber-cool but best not to be used in an actual sword fight lest you lose an eye.
Money may not have ever made a man happy, but this collection has certainly done it for us. It was punk, it was sex, it was fashun. Vaquera’s Money is what makes the fashion world go round.
Photography by Natalie Ivanova.