An explosive show to kickstart the week-long fashion festivities, Bang Pineda ups the barrier-breaking movement with an amped up take on his signature streetwear-meets-athleisure irreverence.
Related: Designer Spotlight: How Bang Pineda Brilliantly Breaks The Fashion Rules
Out of order. These were the words that were splashed all over the screens and many a decal leading up to the Bang Pineda show that opened what is set to be a week-long celebration of local fashion for MEGA Fashion Week. No, the sign plastered on the venue’s bathroom was not part of the décor, but it did in its found way stack up to what revealed to be the theme of the celebrated designer, stylist, and fashion personality’s holiday collection.
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With his storied tenure in the industry, there are certain things you expect from a Bang Pineda show—high-octane energy, flashy visuals, and of course, irreverent fashion. Whether it be his distinct take on tailoring or his signature underground streetwear-meets-athleisure, there exists a sense of order that threads through his collection. While it does service many style personas, cohesion still reigns supreme, further exemplifying how perceived differences make one cumulative whole. So, the introduction of the phrase “out of order” does seem like a wrench in the cog.
“The inspiration of the collection came to me when I was on my way to New York,” says the designer, counting the Big Apple as a crucial jumping point for his many creative pursuits—and boy is it quite the list. With his styling gigs, regular meetings and pre-production pow-wows, tending to his businesses, as well as preparing for another major show, it seems that there is a tectonic shift in the order of his life. And yet, he pulls everything off with incredible panache, all while making a searing fashion moment.
For his Holiday 2019 offering for MEGA Fashion Week, Bang Pineda cultivates a sense of order from the mix of silhouettes, materials, and aesthetics that all coalesce to a convergence of understanding. Backed up by a repetitive robotic vocal laced with Berlin-inspired beats, the show began with bang, literally, with an all-black hooded look that displayed Pineda’s ingenuity, with the jodhpur-like trousers appearing to be a repurposed hoodie. What followed were a slew of athletic outerwear that were spliced, stitched, and strewn together in atypical ways, all rendered in stark contrasts of black and white, as well a peppering of bold red.
The progression proved to be adaptive, as usually casual ensembles were dressed up with blazers, cropped jackets, all sporting a prominent “Bang” insignia or in-your-face statement. Not to be missed were the sprinkling of interesting backpack and utilitarian harness that proves that function can up its form in a truly fashionable way. Further along, there was a lightness breathing through the understandably heavy-handed orchestration of looks through denim numbers that were consistent and charming in its pulsating preference for the unexpected. Needless to say, Bang Pineda not only reminded us, but also cemented his barrier-breaking vision to unerring permanence. A self-confessed celebration of the different, the odd, and the crazy, it was a true liberation on the fashion front—and that is just the first wave of his revolution. The best, he says, is yet to come. If this show is any indication, then we are so on board the next phase of his movement.
