Seersucker Is In, Bare Ankles Are Out: Richard Chai Men's Spring 2014 Show

Seersucker Is In, Bare Ankles Are Out: Richard Chai Men's Spring 2014 Show

by Jacob Brown

Photo: Zach Hyman/BFAnyc.com

In menswear, nothing says spring or summer like a nice piece of breezy seersucker fabric.Richard Chai’s first men’s look this season was a full suit in the material, tailored in an almost see-through white. To an exuberant sound track that included Lorde and the Drums, an array of lightweight fabrics followed—a nylon tee, a poplin dress shirt, a linen short-sleeved button-down, and seersucker everything—sometimes all in one look, mixed and matched brilliantly thanks to Chai’s much loved verve for layering. (As an aside, the most consistent layer seemed to be black socks. Bare ankles are so out next summer!)
 
The warm-weather fun: As part of a new collaboration with Andrew Marc, a handful of looks were topped off with leather moto jackets—perhaps not the most obvious choice for summer outerwear, but finished in white as these were, the balance felt right. “I’m a real ’90s kid, and a lot of this layering feels so normal to me, the different weight fabrics, but also the whole skirts-with-pants thing on the girls. It’s all a play on that,” Chai explained backstage. “With the jackets, it’s really the toss-it-on aspect of outerwear. Kind of like an accessory. You can put it with anything.”