Two and a quarter hours is a long time for any superstar to ask fans to wait for a show to start. But on Saturday night in Cortlandt Alley, a somewhat grimy passageway between Broadway and Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan, hundreds of people, including Solange Knowles, seemed perfectly happy to wile away the evening in expectation of what was to come.
Namely, Telfar Clemens’s 20th-anniversary fashion show, which was the first official show of his namesake label in almost three years, though “fashion show” was something of a misnomer for the event. Yes, there were clothes involved, and yes, there was a catwalk (or at least the street), and yes, there were people seated on either side along with photographers.
But the parade that finally started at 8:15 p.m. bore about as much resemblance to a traditional fashion show as Mr. Clemens’s signature tank tops — twisted, asymmetric, backless, upside-down — do the standard undergarment. Instead, it was a celebration, a happening and a collective shout of triumph in the face of the current political climate.
Not to mention a reflection of the way Mr. Clemens, who founded his brand on the premise of inclusivity long before D.E.I. was a corporate calling card or a political lightning rod, has redesigned American basics — cutting pants to play peekaboo with the thigh; making athletic shirts into the equivalent of royal robes. Rejecting the traditional system, he built his empire his way, transforming a logo into a not-so-secret password to a world that defines luxury not as a sign of material success, but as being seen. There is a reason he held his show not during the usual ready-to-wear season in September or February, but on the weekend after Juneteenth.
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