Before shipping his debut Sanderlak collection to Paris, where press and buyers will see the new label for the first time later this week, Sander Lak did a test run in a gallery space in his Chrystie Street office building. Sanderlak is both a straightforward sportswear line and a concept brand, one whose everyday vibes will shift year-to-year based on a location of the peripatetic designer’s choosing. First up in Los Angeles, a fitting starting point given that in the time since Sies Marjan, Lak’s former brand, shuttered, he worked on a screenplay and came close to getting the movie made before returning to fashion.
On the walls on Chrystie Street were portraits of Anglenos of all stripes: the well-known, famous progeny, and street-cast kids alike, and piled here and there amidst colorful pillows and lush houseplants were books by L.A. chroniclers including Eve Babitz, John Fante, and Rosecrans Baldwin. The paperback edition of the latter’s Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles is a particularly vivid shade of green. That seems fitting too, considering the fact that color is such a big part of the Sanderlak identity.
The racks were indeed awash with color: sweat sets in the freshest lemon sorbet and the deepest bordeaux red, an ’80ish snap-front jacket and cargos in sky blue, denim separates overdyed deep pink, a striped rugby, a midnight blue shearling with “frosted” bronze tips, and another coat in a rainbow melange jacquard that conjured memories of a circa 2019 Sies Marjan dress aswirl with watercolor pastels. After oohing and ahhing over the juicy colors, editors and buyers will surely appreciate the care with which Lak chose his fabrics, be it the slubby cotton of the logo ringer tees, a world away from the “plasticky” t-shirts surfers wore until they were holey back in the day; the just-right cotton rib of other tops, or the bounce of a fuzzy marl knit sweater with a scoop neck.
Is it normcore? Not exactly. In Sanderlak, there’s no “blending in,” which is one of the founding principles of fashion’s first “core.” But it is arriving at a moment when even luxury designers are rejecting sartorial indulgence. At Prada yesterday, Miuccia Prada railed against “useless complicated ideas: a lot for the sake of doing a lot.” Lak has managed a neat trick: he’s doing a lot with a little.