story and photos by Charles Beckwith
As a fashion label, Suno came about in an odd way. Filmmaker Max Osterweis created the brand with designer Erin Beatty, with the intention of sourcing textiles from developing nations, to give desperate communities an economic boost from the production and export of culturally-tied textiles. In the Spring 2013 collection, you can see a lot of hard work went into making the base elements of some of the garments, and there were some beautiful dresses, but several looks were still far from high end, and the collection didn’t seem to have a core concept stylistically.
The cuts were youthful, but excessive use of large floral prints, as well as seemingly haphazard combinations of materials, and oddly oversized pockets, made this show look at times more Fort Lauderdale than New York City. It generally lacked harmony, as if a number of pieces were designed by several committees that didn’t communicate with each other on what they were building, and someone tried to mix the already produced materials because it was all they had to work with. This was evident in design as well as styling for the show. Colors were all over the place. The thought that “none of those things go together” was definitely on my mind often as I photographed the show. There were good pieces in the mix, but they were overshadowed by the mess. We’ve previously seen much stronger collections from this team. Before there was strong editing, good fabric combinations, sexy innovative designs… so did something break between there and here?
