It was a season of firsts for Cult Gaia, which rounded out its very first fashion show with its initial take on a new category: menswear.
“We did a lot of tailored suiting,” said designer Jasmin Larian Hekmat before the show, and she infused some other codes from the brand into the men’s offering. “We brought in the calla lily, which is huge for us. I wanted to find different ways to introduce the things we do so well in different ways.”
They included the plissé fabrics she’s used in the past, rendered in richer jewel tones and incorporated throughout the collection. “This collection is very personal to me. It’s inspired by my heritage. I’m Iranian, and all the women who came up before me, I grew up watching them get dressed and treating beauty like ceremony,” she said. “We did a beautiful copper patina to look like tile, and it’s all hand-painted, and beautiful beading.”
The men’s pieces, most of which were suiting, felt a bit simpler, with the exception of a few statement pieces: an embroidered suit jacket with flower embellishments, for one, or a shaggy chocolate brown fur coat.
“I felt we could offer something special in the fabrics and how we approached details in menswear,” Larian Hekmat said. “It was also a good challenge for me to be able to pull myself back, not overdesign but make everything super intentional and play with the best fabrics. We see men coming into the store all the time wanting to wear our clothes. But I think women are also going to buy the men’s, and you’ll see them wearing it on the runway, too.”
