Grounded in discomfort, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta’s latest Eckhaus Latta collection leaned into a kind of emotional tension — one that lives between awkwardness and refinement.
“There’s always been a pressure to make good, fancy, rich people clothes,” Latta said, adding that they took the note and leaned into the “awkwardness” of it for a brand built on counterculture cool.
“Everything’s always a push and pull of failures and successes that we find within the work ourselves,” Eckhaus added. The duo, who picked up a CFDA Award nomination for menswear last year, are keenly thinking about what is needed and how they edit down to “cut the fat,” Latta said.
As always they cast friends alongside models, and their show again felt intimate and lived-in, the clothes animated by real-ish bodies and personalities.
Sensuality threaded through the lineup in restrained, unexpected ways. Striped knits — shrunken, body-skimming, and deliberately bold yet unfussy — were paired with utilitarian trousers or high-waisted leather skirts slit just enough. Cutouts appeared on denim as chaps and sweaters — not as decoration, but as interruption — while unfinished hems peeked out beneath skirts, reinforcing a sense of exposure without being too overt.
Texture subverted garments and black unfolded in multiple fabrications: supple leathers, a faux shearling with a laminated sheen and feathered finishes that shifted with movement. The designers seemed less interested in single hero pieces than in how materials converse — how roughness sharpens elegance, how polish heightens unease.
Ultimately, the strength of the collection laid in this tension. By embracing discomfort and pairing it against refinement, the designers carved out a clear through line — one of control — that felt distinctly their own, and all the more compelling for it.
There is a sense of creative adulthood — validated by award nominations — yet the clothes remained deliberately grounded in the lives of their customers. “It was building upon past seasons and things that feel strong without being too nostalgic,” Latta said.