If You Don't Know, Now You Know
A handful of underexposed designers with great online vintage markets, from Walter Van Beirendonck to Yang Li.
Hello! Not much to say today (except that last week’s offer [I am looking for a job, urgently, and if you help me find one, I will give you free HR for life! Details here] still stands!), but I hope you enjoy this shoppable collection of seven lesser-known designers, from the 60s ‘til now, with robust online resale markets and unique design perspectives that are worthy of consideration alongside the designers we all know and love (and are maybe a wee bit oversaturated in, at this point in the fashion year).
Also, I never mentioned it here, but I had an article come out in i-D mag a while ago about Jewish fashion, a topic which I have also written about for Mildew Magazine’s impending second issue and will be writing about for at least one more pub before the year’s end! Is this my niche???? Hey, if it pays the bills, Baruch Hashem. Let me know what you think of ‘em or if you know any places I should pitch in this vein.
If you like these posts, please let me know by liking and commenting here or on HR’s Instagram, subbing to the HR Substack (this) for as little as two bucks a month, one dollar per bonus post (subsidized subs available HERE) or for ZERO DOLLARS, share (tag me if on IG so I can see and thank you)!
Thank you SO MUCH for your support, whatever you are able and willing to do to help is extremely valuable to me and I’m honored to be a small part of your life on the web.
Yoshiki Hishinuma
One of my favorite designers, Yoshiki Hishinuma fashions clothes as if playing with paper. Crumpled, crinkly, fraying, blotted with blooms of color, torn and pasted against a clashing pattern, folded like transcendental origami…You can get great prices on Hishinuma pieces, and they’re just as (if not, sometimes, more) compelling than more popular kindred brands, e.g. Issey Miyake.
Pauline Trigere
Pauline Trigere is very 70s and 80s does 50s and 60s (makes sense, given her age bracket), but presents Bye Bye Birdie-worthy clothes that actually make sense in contemporary contexts thanks to the designer’s decade-spanning understanding of trendiness.
Breaking my embargo on the word “chic” just for the above dress. Ok, it’s back on again.
Mitsuhiro Matsuda
Best known for his glasses empire, Mitsuhiro Matsuda makes icy, crisp, light clothing that makes just as much sense in winter as in summer.
The tiny details, like the near-imperceptible gaps above the nose pad connectors, are so sexy.
I am so obsessed with the cinched spiral on the hip!!!
Walter Van Beirendonck
Like Jeremy Scott/Moschino/that camp of energy, Walter Van Beirendonck’s pieces are cartoonish and campy but sporty and utilitarian enough not to feel costume-y or too heavy-handed.
I LOVE the neckline of this dress (and its very kindergarten-y color scheme)—reminds me of when I recommended tying t-shirts at the sleeve:
I told you to wear cycling shoes!
Masculinizing the trompe l’oeil nipple trend, or babygirlifying cycling gear? Either way, good news.
Atsuro Tayama
Everything Atsuro Tayama makes seems wind-blown, disheveled, ineffably “off” in a delicious way.
The site says the above is a nightgown, but that might be a typo? Who would wear such a creation to sleep?
Dirk Bikkembergs
Most famous for his leather boots (like the below), Bikkembergs is weirdly California, at the intersection of the Harley-Davidson stan, stoner skate punk, and rich mom demographics.
This top feels like a game—dark Chutes and Ladders?
Yang Li
Yang Li is all raw edges and subversions and Jenny Holzer-adjacent truisms in basic, sporty, but refined silhouettes. Many affordable pieces abound.
I love how thick the bottom hem is in contrast with the raw-edged neck above.
This is the first time I’ve seen a leather jacket so planar, like a piece of paper hurriedly wrapped around the chest.
If you discovered a new saved search amongst the above, let me know here or on IG, and have an interesting (in a good way) rest of your day!
<3 HR