Toronto based luxury streetwear paired with Toronto made ethically sourced leather? Sounds like a match made in heaven! Andrew Coimbra of the eponymous label and UnCuffed designer Olga Barsky teamed up this season at Toronto Fashion Week’s RE/SET 003 in an incredible studio presentation. The collaborative effort styled the two current collections together to create a seamless blend of clean streetwear dressing accented with beautiful leather accessories.
Andrew Coimbra brings luxury dressing to a whole new location – the street. The urban styles combine sophisticated wool and Italian fabrics with hoodies and casual dress. The classic staples of luxury clothing are given a whole new life with Coimbra’s attention to print and style, and the bold graphics that decorate many of the coats give off a powerful air. The long coats really show an attention to tailoring and fine fabrics and the intentional pairing with casual hoodies and t-shirts have a cool, contemporary, and youthful aesthetic.
Wearability That Transcends the Street
While speaking with the designers backstage, it became apparent that power and ease were themes both creators attempted to master. Coimbra featured snake print as an homage to the “connotations of power and sex” (Coimbra, 2018) that snakes imbue. The goal of his collection was to “push the idea of wearability and transcending street style, and marry those two concepts together in a way that felt refreshing and not forced” (Coimbra, 2018). For Barsky her inspirations ranged from everything from “technology to early 90s Vogue” (Barsky, 2018) and in doing so allowed herself to create pieces that were not only edgy but incredibly of the moment.
Match Made in [Eco] Heaven
Olga Barsky brought a really great edge to the studio with her UnCuffed leather accessories. Leather pieces including fingerless gloves, harnesses, and laser-cut bandannas were the perfect compliment to the soft fabrics of Coimbra’s jackets. Barsky’s pieces have a great balance between the harshness of the leather and the softness of the designs motifs. A few of the pieces had a beautiful hand motif pattern which played really well with the youthfulness of the clothing. And as if the beautiful design wasn’t enough to peak your interest, the ethically sourced leather seals the deal for this amazing collection, making it not only cool, but good for the environment.
Overall the presentation was a perfect combination of hard leather and soft, casual fabrics. The two collections worked perfectly together with the sort of ease that streetwear should have.
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*Slideshow photos courtesy of The Collections (@fsncollections) and NordstromMatte PR (@nobadpress).
