First Look: Stella Jean

Sep 02, 2023

The air at Milk Studios today was arctic, frosty enough that Xavier Jones, a stylist, felt compelled pull his black fox tight around him as he stoically braved the 45-minute wait to showtime.

The atmosphere heated up plenty, though, the moment Rio Uribe, the Los Angeles-bred designer behind Gypsy Sport, sent his first models striding, or break-dancing, down the runway in what had to have been one of the zestiest shows of a jampacked week.

Rio, as the 28-year-old designer is known to his chums in voguing circles, had shed his shirt and with it, apparently, his last shred of inhibition, before releasing on his catwalk a giddy procession of male and female models done up in brocade boleros, raffia-trimmed skirts, chambray shorts and carpenter pants that slid down the hips like crisp upmarket saggers.

He showed, in addition, a stew of multitiered skirts, latticed string tops, some baring the models’ torsos, and, for the second time this week (the first was at Hood by Air), free-form trousers that exposed a lustily contoured derrière.

Nor did Mr. Uribe, a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist, neglect his signature locker room looks, harmoniously fusing satin with athletic mesh or jersey, in a collection that was mostly produced in a garment-district basement.

His mannequins wore outsize septum rings. Some carried string bags bulging with fruit, and all pouted moodily, their lips darkly lacquered, bleeding and crazily askew.

Mr. Uribe picked up much of his craft as a merchandiser, working with Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga in Paris.

"His style combines genderless fashion and high and active wear," said Carole Sabas, a writer and one of the designer's early supporters, who first encountered him on the web.

"You could tell from his Instagram that he was the real deal," she said.

Mr. Uribe, who was thronged after the show, took time nonetheless to spool off a roster of cultural references, among them traditional Chinese influences, as well as those of Mexico and Little India in Queens.

"I was inspired by the eclecticism of the city we live in," he said, "by all of its chaos and all its sophistication." Amen to that.

— Ruth La Ferla