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The door to Willy Chavarria’s studio is plastered with a greeting: “GOOD MORNING”, reads a sticker slapped to the big, grey door that opens up to the industrial Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio. The red and black sticker is accompanied by other adhesives: a logo and a branded photograph of one of Chavarria’s models. On Wednesday, there was another more timely notice: “WILLY CHAVARRIA / SS2025 / CASTING”, an A4 sheet of paper read.
It was two days before the brand’s New York Fashion Week show, held on Wall Street on Friday night. Inside, a team of around 10 flits about the studio, clad in vintage tees and well-worn jeans. It’s abuzz with energy but not hectic. A fitting is wrapping up, and the team is sewing garments on the communal table to the left. People squeeze past, grabbing different pieces off the crowded racks. “It’s a lunch break,” says Chavarria’s friend and art director of seven seasons, Jess Cuevas, referring to the relative lack of chaos. Nobody’s eating lunch — they’re too busy sewing, steaming and refining.
But the studio is quiet enough for a chat. Chavarria walks us to his makeshift ‘office’, which totals three chairs in a circle, sectioned off by clothing racks and mood boards. “One day we’ll have an office like yours,” he says with a smile, referencing Condé Nast’s One World Trade Center HQ, where Chavarria recorded an episode of Vogue’s ‘The Run-Through’ podcast just days earlier. “Everyone knew my name,” he marvels, referencing his lap around the office post-recording.
Of course they did. Over the last few seasons, Chavarria’s shows have risen to the most coveted of NYFW ranks — a Chavarria invite is a golden ticket in 2024. After working at American powerhouses like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, Chavarria’s own brand has come to represent what a modern American fashion label can be: elevated sportswear, imbued with Chavarria’s Chicano roots. The shows bring an energy missing from so many others. And Friday’s was no exception.
After drinks and bites (very good chicken tacos — a welcome addition at a 7pm show), guests shuffled to their seats, a massive American flag hanging overhead. Booklets containing the US Constitution were placed at each seating. The show began with a parade of Chavarria’s signature tailoring, before the lyrical music stopped and the lights went down, then went red. The music shifted and part two began: the Adidas debut. The finale, led by Chavarria himself with models in tow, was met with cheers. After the show, attendees lingered out the front. Last show or not, you wanted to hang around the buzz.
Last year’s show opened with a film that Chavarria directed. This year’s opened with a performance by musical trio Yahritza y Su Esencia. Yahritza Martinez sang ‘Querida’ (in Spanish) alongside her two brothers. “It’s so important because this is the moment that we tell the story of the collection,” Chavarria says from the studio. The added touch? He produced the song.
The song dropped the morning of the show, with Chavarria making the entire show playlist available once the curtain had closed. It’s all part of the brand’s multimedia approach. “The crossover between fashion and entertainment is already so overlapping,” he says. “I want to be the one that connects them.” Chavarria is keen to produce more music in the future to expand his world beyond fashion.
New York hurdles
It’s hard to put on a show in New York, and Chavarria isn’t shy about calling out the lack of institutional support available to American designers.
“It’s much harder to show than in Europe. You get a lot more support [there],” Chavarria says. “Here, you’re kind of on your own. You’re at the mercy of sponsorships and people with deep pockets, and if you’re not someone that has that money, the trick is how do you do a show that is going to pay itself off in the long run?”
Chavarria has a formula: assess the anticipated investment required to put on a show, calculate expected future revenues (approximately one year out), and determine what the actual show cost can be based on revenue goals.
The strategy is one thing (many designers fall flat here, lacking the right financial team) — but pulling it off is another. Thankfully, Chavarria has locked in sponsorships that feel authentic to the brand. “It’s tough for a lot of designers, who have to go get some random brand to sponsor them, slap their logo on their stuff. I can’t do that because I want to protect the brand image.”
One of Chavarria’s main sponsors is Don Julio, which he’s now worked with for two seasons. This season, the designer and tequila brand collaborated on an all-linen runway look (look 44) and a Chavarria custom-designed tequila bottle. One sits (unopened) in the studio.
In the studio, one of the racks is filled with the show’s biggest reveal: Chavarria’s new Adidas collab. “I wanted to do something with a major giant athletic company for so long,” he says. “I knew that the Willy story could really vibe with Adidas in particular just because it’s such a classic and it’s been worn in my community forever. I see it as part of the wardrobe.” Talks started last February, just after his Autumn/Winter 2024 show, and design kicked off late April. Items include trainers, T-shirts, crewnecks and track pants.
The collaboration is also with American former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar — one of Chavarria’s favourite figures since childhood. “When I was a little boy, I actually asked my parents to call me K A Jabbar because I thought he was so amazing,” he laughs. On a more serious note, he adds: “His stance on social justice is so strong and so invincible, so well articulated that I wanted to bring that through in the collection.”
Chavarria clocks my Vogue colleague filming our interview for socials; he pauses, grabs a black and red Willy Chavarria x Adidas tee, and puts it on. For his portrait, he swaps his Gucci slip-ons for a pair of Allen Edmonds loafers. (He first collaborated with the American shoemaker last season, and is back again for round two.) Chavarria knows how these things work.
The stars of the show are the shoes. Chavarria pulls a point-toe white trainer (“So when you wear your baggy jeans, your baggy track pants, this little point pokes out and it’s like the classic Jabbar [shoe] just in a new silhouette.”), with vintage laces and ‘Willy’ printed in gold along the side. This “elevated” version will be available next May, and a blue-striped “commercial” version (as Chavarria puts it), also available in May.
Willy’s América
The Adidas and Jabbar collab aligns with the wider premise of Chavarria’s SS25 show.
“The show is titled América, which is America through the voice of an immigrant,” he says. “It’s the way so many of us Americans heard the word América through our growing up, whether they were immigrants or kids of immigrants. And I just love the way that sounds.”
It’s a big — and intentional — statement against the election year backdrop. “I wanted, in this time, to do a show that reminds everybody that we are part of this country and we belong in this country and we have a place in this country.”
The collection was inspired by political movements: the civil rights movement, the United Farm Workers movement, the women’s liberation movement. This bleeds into the show, which incorporates pieces in collaboration with both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and United Farm Workers (UFW), an organisation close to Chavarria’s heart. (His grandmother once had a coffee with UFW founder and activist Cesar Chavez — “That was our claim to fame,” Chavarria laughs.)
Chavarria points out that these movements coincided with moments when “fashion looked really good”. He walks over to the look board. Looks inspired by the ’60s and ’70s hip hop aesthetic, during the civil rights era, mesh with those inspired by the working class people Chavarria sees on the streets today. “Which is like, a guy going to work at [phone provider] AT&T and he’s got his uniform on and he’s got his keys because he’s gonna open the store and he’s got his own swag and he’s styling it out. He looks so sick.”
Chavarria’s embrace of the Everyman bleeds through to his casting, too. He points to one of the models: “I love this guy. He’s a construction worker in Texas and he doesn’t even like fashion. He does it because we’re friends.” Chavarria has lots of top models asking to walk his show, he says it’s “incredibly flattering”, but it won’t work for the brand.
Through his cast and his garments, Chavarria hopes to offer a glimpse of what he calls “the real América”. “I haven’t always been proud to be an American, because the country has so many faults. It was built on such horrible things like slavery and genocide — it has a wretched history,” he says. “But at the same time, we’re all here now and we are living under a democratic government. It’s important I think for us to remember that we have the ability to make things better because of this.”
It’s why he’s integrated both the ACLU and UFW into the collection. Some are logo tees and crewnecks — others are plays on the farm worker aesthetic. Chavarria zeroes in on his favourite look, a baggy pink tee over a chequered collared shirt, tucked into wide-leg pleated pants: “He looks like a little Cesar Chavez!” (The activist was often pictured in a chequered shirt.)
Chavarria is hoping the runway spotlight will help drive sales of the collab pieces to support the respective organisations — and, more importantly, drive traffic to next week’s ACLU panel Chavarria is hosting. (Guests are still to be announced, but he’s hoping for some big names — and lots of cameras.) Discussion points will include immigration rights, trans rights and women’s reproductive rights.
When it comes to the clothes, though, there’ll always be an element of commerciality — it’s part of American fashion, Chavarria says. “I plan to be another Tommy Hilfiger or another Calvin Klein or another Ralph Lauren, which is why my shows have a commercial element to them,” he says. “Because I know that to be an American designer, you have to sell the clothes.”
Update: Updated to include detail about the Don Julio collaboration. 8 September 2024
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