One can only speculate how Kanye “Ye” West must have felt at last night’s Fear of God show in Los Angeles. Even before anyone realized a mask-donning Ye had slipped into a stageside seat, the signs that Fear of God designer Jerry Lorenzo had successfully picked up the torch of sophisticated California comfort that Ye first lit were everywhere.
The setting itself was a testament to how grand Lorenzo’s vision for Fear of God has become, and how big the business has gotten. For the brand’s first fashion show in its ten years, Lorenzo took over the Hollywood Bowl, which, in a backstage interview following the show, he called one of his favorite places in LA. “I’ve never believed in just speaking every opportunity you get,” he said of the brand’s long-awaited runway debut. “And I really feel like I finally had something to say. I feel like my resources, my craft, my ability have caught up to my storytelling.”
Guests streamed out of black cars in droves as the sun set over the Hollywood Hills. A sizable proportion of the several thousand attendees were outfitted in the dusty shades of greige and ice and navy that form Fear of God’s primary palette, and which have come to define the refined tones of contemporary SoCal style. Everyone was dolled up for a fashion show, sure, but they would have easily fit right in at LAX or Erewhon.
The guest list rivaled the Coachella lineup in wattage, with a wide cross-section of LA society in attendance that spoke to the pop cultural firepower Fear of God now commands: Tyler the Creator held court in a box down the way from Squid Game star Hoyeon. Pete Wentz slid past Tessa Thompson and Lena Waithe in search of his seat. The Online Ceramics guys caught up with fellow local artists as guests milled about. “I have a million rappers and athletes here,” said one high-powered talent manager, in search of a few of them. There were as many members of the fashion press there, too. Basically, if a meteor had struck the Hollywood Bowl last night, there would be no more fashion magazines, or people to be in them.
Once night had long settled over the Bowl, and the English songwriter Sampha had belted out some tunes at the piano, celestial clouds on a massive suspended video screen began to float over the stage. Lorenzo is deeply devout (Fear of God is not just a cool brand name), and he sees dressing as almost a spiritual act. Often his clothes, for all their ease, appear as pristine and purified as ecclesiastical robes. As the Hollywood Cross shone brightly over the 101 in the distance, it became clear this was not just a fashion show but a gathering of Lorenzo’s congregation.
The strongest parallel to Ye’s now-dormant Yeezy project was the highly anticipated debut of Fear of God Athletics, a collaboration between Lorenzo and Adidas that’s been germinating for years. Its launch couldn’t come at a more critical time for the Three Stripes, which in October terminated its incredibly lucrative, culture-shifting partnership with Ye, leaving the German sportswear giant in need of another major hit. This preview looked to be a more elevated offering, with shiny wool basketball shorts and suede western-fringe jeans tagged on the seams with a subtle new three-stripes band. Other pieces pointed to an aspirational point of view, with the classic Adidas track pants cut in lavish velvet, and high-top sneakers made with rough suedes. Will Adidas try to expand the partnership to Fear of God’s rocketship Essentials line, the entry-level everyday collection that’s been a runaway commercial success? Time will tell. “We’ve been working with Adidas for the past two and a half years and like everything that we do, I believe everything was written before it happens,” Lorenzo said.
Lorenzo is known for clean oversized silhouettes, which he designs with the precision of a master tailor. A centimeter here and there, to Lorenzo, makes all the difference. It’s something he feels out through his creative process, which is predicated on a simple question that is also a high bar: “Would I wear it or not?” as he explained backstage. Does it make him feel, in other words, “effortlessly sophisticated?” And in the nearly three years Lorenzo spent working on this collection, dubbed “Eighth,” the aperture of his personal style has widened ever so slightly. (Fear of God collections come out when they are ready, rather than seasonally.)
Looks were organized by hue, beginning with a model strolling down the lengthy white runway jutting out from the stage in a flowy black suit that represented the most refined version of Fear of God’s founding silhouette: oversized on top, slim through the legs. Lorenzo introduced new textures into his sartorial lexicon here, with a nubby beige overcoats, and similar silhouettes rendered in glossy brown fur, one worn by the skater Sage Elsesser who modeled in the show. “All those fur coats, I would rock,” Lorenzo said.
An additional layer of luxury appeared in the leather used throughout the collection: as corded belts for blazers, suede-fringe western jeans, and large glossy moto pants in black and white. Lorenzo also clearly continues to apply his learnings from 2020’s celebrated Fear of God x Zegna collaboration. The tailoring appeared as balanced as any he’s designed, with padded shoulders smoothly cantilevering over the models arms, and lapels (where there were any—Lorenzo prefers kimono-like collars these days) nicely slimmed down from his ’80s-inspired “Seventh” collection.
About a quarter of the way through the show, the peals of Nina Simone’s cover of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” rang out through the Bowl. Lorenzo had a pulpit, and he was clearly going to use it. The crowd quieted. Lorenzo has always been a proud American designer, and a proud Black American designer, for all the complexities that entails. In an elegant white turtleneck, Lorenzo’s father, the former Mets manager Jerry Manuel, nodded his head.
As Lorenzo explained backstage, he couldn’t hold his first fashion show without considering the long road his forebears had to travel to get here. “I wanted to share what American luxury looked like to me, [without] overlooking the cost to celebrate that,” Lorenzo said. “I grew up with my dad telling me stories of his grandma picking cotton, and I have the luxury of my staff bringing me fabric books [so I can] pick and choose the cotton that we use. So it’s a freedom, and there’s a responsibility that comes from a lot of pain. But more than pain, it comes from love.” As Simone faded out, the track launched into a remix of “Blood on the Leaves,” Ye’s pugnacious reinterpretation of “Strange Fruit.” Ye, in his black mask, enthusiastically bounced out of his seat and jammed along as if he was the one on stage.
As the models took the stage one more time for the finale, an Adidas-clad Pusha T continued the program’s musical journey, performing a brisk remix of Ye’s “Feel the Love.” Clearly, Lorenzo and Ye’s on-again off-again friendship is back on, and many showgoers seemed relieved that someone resembling the old Ye was in the house as he continued to dance. (The remix also included the only reference to Fear of God’s basics line in the show, and it was a great one: “Buy Essentials, fly her out,” Pusha rapped.)
It’s too reductive, of course, to say that Lorenzo is indebted to Ye, or that the student has become the master. A decade ago, when Lorenzo was hawking T-shirts out of his Los Angeles garage, Ye got his hands on a few tees and was so impressed he gave Lorenzo a job at Donda, the big break the party promoter and onetime aspiring baseball professional needed to prove what he could do. But it’s hard to imagine Yeezy rising as the disruptive force it once was without the stylistic guidance of Lorenzo, who helped design the first two Yeezy collections. We’ll never know how big Yeezy could have gotten, but if there was any doubt that Fear of God would step into the cultural and commercial void left by its implosion, last night surely put them to rest.
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