How Luar Became New York Fashion Week's Crowning Finale
On a recent afternoon in Sunset Park’s Industry City, the fashion designer Raul Lopez—whose brand, Luar, is his first name spelled backwards—was in the midst of planning his Fall 2023 collection. In his small office, where he sits with two assistants, paisley fabrics and pinstripes were stuffed neatly onto two clothing racks. The room smelled, like honey and musk.
“Pressure,” he said, and laughed. Especially because there’s a history to that final show slot, he said. “And now it’s like,. But I feel like, because I’m from New York and born and raised here, I’m the New York girl. And everyone’s always like,Lopez’s story is the American fashion dream, one that wasn’t really possible for most of the 20th century and still barely seems possible now.
A hand-to-mouth existence is not uncommon for young designers, especially in America. But, he admitted now, “At that point I was like,. But subconsciously I was just trying to get validation from the art and the fashion girls that were my peers that I look up to.” Besides, he didn’t want to make things like T-shirts or hoodies with logos on them. “At HBA, that was our bread and butter: smacking a logo on a T-shirt.
The hero dress from Luar’s Spring 2023 collection, inspired by dresses Lopez saw his mother and aunts wearing at family reunions growing up.“I’m not a woman. I don’t know what it’s like,” he said. When he’s designing, he has several people try on the pieces. “I’ll be like, will you wear this? Will you feel comfortable? And if they’re older, what does this remind you of? Is this accurate?” He showed me a video of one of the seamstresses in the factory trying on the Spring 2023 dress.
But in 2019, he basically had a breakdown after more than ten years chasing the dream of fashion success. “I was just like, Okay, I’m broke. [And] it wasn’t that I was broke, it was more like, I need to figure out how to build an actual business, and not just keep making collections to appease the fashion community and editors. I need to make money, and I need to do it the right way.
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