New York Fashion Week: At Telfar and Pyer Moss, messages in the music

2:32 PMNEW YORK — Telfar Clemens and Kerby Jean-Raymond, the clothing designers behind Telfar and Pyer Moss, have completely different outlooks and passions. But they have one thing in common: Both of their shows at New York Fashion Week were set off by soulful live music that transformed the gallery at Spring Studios in Tribeca, where they showed their collections.

Clemens, who founded his eponymous label in 2005, designs one line meant for all genders. But to call it unisex doesn’t do it justice. There’s an element of genderqueer defiance that beats through his designs. I’m pretty sure if singer Patti LaBelle and designer Jeremy Scott ever had a kid together, it would be Telfar Clemens. The Liberian-American designer won the top prize of $400,000 in November in the annual Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund awards for emerging talent.

This year, Clemens decided to hold a concert instead of a traditional runway show. Eleven musicians, including Dev Hynes, Kelela, and Solange doppelgänger Kelsey Lu, wore his designs and performed together, creating an androgynous energy that buzzed through a room bathed in red light.

The Friday night show began with keyboardist Bryndon Cook walking through the crowd to get to a small circular stage. He began playing and singing a version of Hezekiah Walker’s “Grateful,” with lyrics adapted for the show. The entrances coincided with the song. A musician would appear at the entrance, walk through the crowd while singing, and join his or her counterpart on stage. Each artist continued singing until the last one was on stage, and then Clemens joined his collaborators for one joyous verse.

After the show, I saw tears in the eyes of some audience members. A reporter from Vogue Italia confirmed that no, most shows at Fashion Week do not have this atmosphere of soulful, open vulnerability.

The Pyer Moss show Saturday evening was a traditional runway show, but it was similarly moving. The label’s founder, Kerby Jean-Raymond has found his niche in marrying beauty with irreverence, and this year, he presented the first part of a ready-to-wear line he’s designed for Reebok. Backed by a gospel choir bedecked in white, the models, all people of color, walked out to a playlist customized by Rafael Saadiq, which began with “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” If you listened closely, the lyrics changed, and the choir began to sing the words “too many n—-s in white designers.”

The Haitian-American designer is best known for his provocative August 2015 show, which he used to protest police violence against unarmed black people. He opened the show with video of cellphone and dashcam footage capturing police violence, then sent models down the runway in boots spattered with red paint made to look like blood. Jean-Raymond has become known for such political statements made through fashion. For instance, he designed the “Even More Names” T-shirt Colin Kaepernick wore for a spread in GQ when the magazine named the former NFL quarterback its Citizen of the Year.

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This year’s presentation felt like black liberation fashion church as a choir cycled through arrangements of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” Kendrick Lamar’s “We Gon’ Be Alright” and Boris Gardiner’s “Every N—– is a Star.”

The back of one jacket said Pyer Moss, followed by “Psalm 91.” It’s the psalm that says in part,

Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.