Cheers abounded for Aisling Camps after the WWD one-to-watch made her New York Fashion Week debut Thursday at the Starrett Lehigh Building in Chelsea. As the sun streamed into the 12th floor, Camps was floating on cloud nine, matching the optimistic mood of her knit-centric lineup. “It feels a little surreal,” she said. “It’s been years of building up to this point, so I’m in shock. I’m a little bit speechless, to be honest.”
What she couldn’t say in an interview, she said through her intricate hand-work. The pieces, many of them hand-loomed by Camps herself, spoke clearly about her brand’s ethos: a balance of craft and cool, sculpture and slouch with subtle homages to her Trinidadian heritage.
Playing with versatile layers, fine-gauge tank dresses and tops came with fluttering straps that could be flipped up or down to switch the look on a dime. Elsewhere, a shredded bias weaving technique, used for one fabulously chunky hooded vest and matching maxi skirt, spoke to Camps’ love of nature’s organic forms.
The designer shared that her office has become its own microbiome lately, dominated by a plant wall. Hence strokes of just about every shade of green in the Pantone color book: from olive to jade, chartreuse and fern.
Camps managed to muster up a few words to explain her decision: “I’m drawn to green. It’s soothing. It just felt very now.”
“It’s been an intense year for a lot of people, and I just feel like we needed a little fleck of optimism,” she continued. “And green feels like that, a little bit of hope.”
