Moving beyond his debut collection which stayed within a safe range of navy, grey, and black, Carlos Garciavelez’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection plays with the spectrum of light, drawing inspiration from David Flavin’s 1996 fluorescent installation. Vertical gradients of neon blue into neon green printed on tees, horizontal gradients punctuating the hem of sweaters of lightweight bonded fabrics, and neon treads across coats and button-ups all convey the temporal quality of light that Carlos experiments with. “The challenge,” he says, is “to capture a finite quality of an incandescent source and how that relates to the human body”.
The solid structuring of the garments, especially the linen jackets with strips of microfiber inserted just next to the set-in shoulder seam, speaks to Carlos’ architecture training. He has a master’s from Harvard, where he teaches two days per week – but his end goal is fashion, and as an artist, he finds the points wherein cloth and architecture meet.
The collection targets today’s cultural nomad to provide a comfortable, sporty, wearable garment. With the highest price point set at $1500, the line is wholly affordable, successfully catering to the intended demographic.
As his second collection evolves leaps beyond his first, we look eagerly forward to what Carlos’s vision brings us in seasons to come.