Fuck the Schedule: Inside Cd1974’s Basement Revolt

Images by Kenna Kroge

Words by Abraham Chabon

The weather’s been shit for weeks in NYC. The sidewalks of LES are now puddles with heaps of stained and streaked sludge of a dying winter. There isn’t much glitz and glamour in NYC’s fashion week, but that’s not what Cd1974 represents anyways. They have been left off the official schedule, but there are dozens of people around the shuttered door that leads down the alleyway to the showroom. The crowd is mostly leather boots, leather jackets, bangs, cigarettes, and dyed hair. New York City's usual suspects, the hungover and worn out, the students who a few hours before were droning off in their classes, the restaurant workers taking the night off. It feels like that nightclub that you always try to get into but the lines too long and the bouncer doesn’t like you. It feels like friends getting together, everyone's on a list, or they know someone on a list, or they should be on the list. Fuck the Corporate Fashion Week Schedule. This is where you want to be. 

We head down to the fitting room, the basement of Betty, a bar of mostly booths and loud music. As soon as we make it down stairs the first thing that hits us are the sounds and the smells. There's laughter, shouting, the cloud of hairspray and the smoke from vapes, the bursts of light from countless camera flashes. Models with dark eyeliner and curled hair scamper around. The hair stylist Grayson Ozturk tells me he was going for an Edwardian look, I'm not sure what that means, but I like it. One girl seems to be missing a tooth. The tables are crowded with scissors, makeup, and glasses of wine. Everyone is fighting for a chance to look at themselves in the mirror, or huddled around the metal rack with this season's collection hung up overflowing on hangers. The basement is filled with beautiful people in their beautiful clothes. 

Cole and Alex, Cd1974’s designers and figureheads, are smiling, kissing, anxious and excited. This was a bit of a last minute plan, but it's going smoothly enough, every time a model walks past them you can see how proud they are. There is something wonderful about seeing a young designer's collection come together, those hours of hard work paying off. It’s extra wonderful when the designers are in love. Alex and Cole met a few years ago, she had gone to his studio with a friend, he was mostly a painter back then. It was something like love at first sight I think. Cd1974 is their divine conception, a lovechild of creative drive and disgruntlement with the establishment. What makes Cd1974 different is immediately recognizable, its glaring in the hustle and bustle of the ruckus in the basement. This is a community effort, this is passion and friends and the wonderful things that can come from that energetic combination. 

When the show starts we are hurried into another downstairs room. It’s white walls and folding chairs, a table with plastic cups of good champagne. This isn't the posh and proper fashion week, it doesn’t want to be, that isn't what Cd1974 is. When the show starts it starts with music I'm not cool enough to recognize, scored by Yves Tumor. Then come the models. Tattooed, angry looking, some of them smiling, all of them strutting. The clothes are Napoleononic, patchwork, tattered, knotting textures, fastened coats. Cd1974 has captured the scene's energy. It’s raw, it's confident, it's messy, it's delicate. It's that beautiful monster, that fuzzing light outside of a dive bar, its overpriced martinis at a LES hotel, its wiping the X off your hand in the bathroom of a concert so you can get a vodka Redbull. An ode to the past but don't call it Indie Sleaze, an excitement for the future, global warming, fascist government, economic collapse and all. When the show ends Cole and Alex strut down the catwalk themselves and share a kiss and a bow in front of the mass of photographers. 

I managed to pull them away from their celebrations and congratulations for an interview at a table in Betty’s. They’ve both been smiling since they left the runway.

Abraham: First of all, I didn’t know it was the two of you design together. What’s that process been like? Did it start with this collection? 

Alex: No. About a year and a half ago I started making pieces and people thought they were part of Cd1974 anyways. It just kind of became more and more part of the practice. 

Cole: We make our own pieces. I make my own pieces, she makes her own great pieces. But we support each other. I need my girlfriend’s input on everything I do. I literally can’t make beautiful women’s clothing without her input. 

Abraham: Has working together changed your relationship? 

Cole It makes it rocky. But also very beautiful. 

Alex Yeah. It feels like we have a baby. 

Cole: We have a baby. 

Abraham: What’s been the toughest part of putting this together? The collection, the show, all of it. 

Cole: The worst part is the best part — it’s all self-produced. It’s all artists I know. All people that trust me. All people that want to be part of it for the culture. We’re not on the fucking fashion week ticket. 

Alex: The worst part is the most beautiful part. 

Cole: It’s so fucking stressful casting these people. But it’s the most incredible thing when it comes together because half the models are writers, artists, drawers, musicians. 

Alex: It's a community. Completely community. Fashion’s ass. We couldn’t pay anyone. And they know that’s where we’re at. They want to be part of it. They’re our friends. 

Abraham: For the people who see this collection— what do you want them to take away? Even if they don’t buy anything? 

Cole: I want it to show people that we can all go outside and have community. Everyone can learn how to sew. Everyone can pick up a guitar and strum it and make poetry. It just takes a group. It takes people who make you feel good about yourself. There’s no way I could’ve done this without putting myself on the line and telling people to trust me. 

Alex: Clothes can be beautiful and lived in. Nothing has to be perfect for it to be well done. 

Abraham: If you weren’t making clothes, what would you be doing? 

Cole: We both do a lot of things. I was painting, but it’s not fun to be a painter who has to rely on money to paint. Fashion opens doors. You hang out with more musicians when you’re making cool clothes. 

Abraham: What piece are you most proud of? 

Alex: This top that i’m wearing, I really love it. 

Cole I made a leather jacket out of scraps from my friend who makes pants for Lenny Kravitz. For three years he saved all the excess leather. I made a jacket out of it. No pattern. I made it drunk. Intuitively. And it fit. 

Abraham: If you could dress anyone in history, dead or alive who would you choose? 

Both of them: Iggy Pop. Jim Morrison. [Loads of other names I can't recognize or make out over the loud music.] 

Abraham: How did you start designing clothes? 

Alex: I started by weaving. There’s one woven dress in this show. For me it’s not about designing. It’s about finding scraps in a studio and being expressive with them. It’s less about the design and more about the art. It’s about the process. 

Abraham: You keep coming back to the community. Anyone in the scene you admire? 

Cole: Mainstream culture right now is totally shit. But the underground is really good. That’s what I need to support. Be part of. I don’t really care about brands. I want to support my friends, work with my friends. 

Abraham: Any last things you want to get out there about the brand? 

Cole: Fuck capitalism. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck anything that has to do with killing people. Art is one of the only things worth staying alive for. Art. Friendship. 

Abraham: And your girlfriend. 

Cole : Duh. My girlfriend. My friends. My brother. My family. The youth. Those are the only things worth living for and making art for. Everything else feels like money laundering and bullshit. Artists worked really hard to get us to a place where we’re free. And then lazy people ruined it. If we don’t step up, our lives are going to suck in twenty years. The easiest way to fight that is through physical mediums. I’m not going to preach. Good fashion. Good community. That changes the world. 

The server walks over and takes their drink orders, two old fashions. I decide I should let them get back to their celebrations.