Hood by Air, one of the hottest labels on the New York Fashion Week calendar, showed its collection yesterday at 23 Wall Street (also known as the most important building in US financial history). Hood by Air is known for challenging conventions and boundaries—are its products for rappers or skaters? Men or women? Athletes or punks?—and the accessories at today’s show certainly delivered.
Models wore stockings over their faces with eyebrows and sideburns penciled on and, most notably, covered their teeth with designer fakes. About those grills (grillz?): unlike the metallic ones we’ve seen at Fashion Week on front row regulars such as Chanel Iman and A$AP Rocky, many of the false teeth at Hood by Air were naturally colored—as in, a little bit yellow like normal teeth.
Some of the false teeth had braces; some had little padlocks marked HBA. One model—with his facial features blurred by a stocking, bangs matted down, and teeth jutting out of his mouth—recalled Sloth, the beloved but not-so-handsome hero from the 1980s classic film, The Goonies. Overall, the look was a little disconcerting, but part of Hood by Air’s appeal is its energetic disruption of fashion’s norms.