Raul Lopez wants to make the ladies feel like bosses. His first full women’s ready-to-wear collection for Spring 2018 only came with 18 looks, but there was certainly enough to prove that, with a bit more streamlining, this is a market in which he might really thrive. The young designer currently operates within the creatively driven underground realm of fashion. His designs—for both men and women—are delightfully humorous and avant-garde, but look closely. Once picked apart, certain pieces could fly off the shelves at somewhere like, say, Opening Ceremony or Maryam Nassir Zadeh. With his debut this season, he was smart to carry over his cheeky, deconstructed office-wear vibes from his main men’s offering.
As he explained it, he “was focused on the type of woman who is in touch with her hypermasculine side, one on a power trip and one who is looking for revenge on any man that has ever tried to make her feel ashamed.” He adds, “She is complex—she loves a night out on Dyckman Street [in New York’s Inwood area], but also lives for an elegant and classy moment.”
This is where Lopez could find balance, somewhere between the style of the wild club-kid posse he has long been a part of and the strong femininity and ladylike aesthetic he’s clearly drawn to. Certain pieces in the new collection were well conceived under the pretense of this dichotomy. There was the camel-colored overcoat that was cinched at the waist and elbows and embroidered with the Wu-Tang Clan’s lyrics, “Cash rules everything around me.” There were cool, sophisticated cuffed jeans and a dark denim skirt with gold buttons layered over them. A gray long blazer embellished with oblong metal hardware at the shoulder and hip was also strong. Like he did with his men’s collection shown earlier this summer, Lopez also played with ideas of suiting—two standouts included a crisp white button-down shirt stitched with “Luar” in cursive and a striking, shapeless dress made from pinstripe jackets and trousers that hung beautifully off of a model’s shoulders. It would also be a shame not to mention the skirt designed with khaki trousers that seemed to insinuate a dude’s “bulge” at the front.
Lopez has incredible potential and, if he can strike the right chord with women who want that business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back kind of style (on top of the DJs, rappers, hip-hop stars, vogue-ers, and artists he’s already won over), he’ll have it made in the shade. As he noted after the show, “Every aspect of my life has been influenced by strong and controversial women and paying homage to them was long overdue.”
