R13. Fall 2025 - NYC

 

(Images:  R13.  2025)

There is great vampire noir movie from 1995, which was set in New York City called 'Addiction' directed by Abel Ferrara, with the main character "Catherine Conklin", played by Lili Taylor, portraying her vampirism as a form of heroin addiction.  And the Master 'vampire' "Peina", in a memorising performance, portrayed by Christopher Walken, belittling Conklin as a pathetic addicted amature vampire, to his mastery, that he had been able to conquer his addiction of vampirism and mastered the 'thirst'.  The movie was essentially about Ferrara's heroin addiction.  

Chris Leba, for his Fall 2025 collection has evoked his inner darkness, as a manifestation of that recognizable gothic aesthetic, weaved into Leba's beloved Lower East Side punk styles. Whilst incorporating the carnal of the 1970s and 1980s, Leba has very much toughened up the collection, with a more of a robust reflection of the vampiric mythos.  And this why I mentioned Ferrara's addicted vampires, more so the Master 'Peina'.  Can we master our vices?  And become a Master of the epicurean?  Much like the antinomianism practises of all the world's religions, who engage in sinful actions (usually in the form of certain forbidden foods, drinking and sex) to be purified by it, while not a slave to its seduction or addiction.  From Jewish Frankisim, Christian mystics, Islamic Sufism such as the Bektashi's, sexual alchemy of the Hindu Kaulakama, and esoteric Tibetan Buddhism.

Am I overstretching the connection of Leba's revamped, tough goth punk, to the discipline of the Left Hand Path?  Maybe.  But it is a fun correlation.    Leba's floral prints from his Spring and Pre-Fall arrays have taken on a darker impression for his Fall 2025 collection, with long hanging chains around necks, leather, padded jackets and militarist inspired styles towards the end of the lookbook.  These resilient and tough styles offer very little compromise, yet with touches of the eros, there does seem like a paradox of extremes have merged.   

But, that maybe Leba's point as a themed concept for his latest collection.  Does this illusive counterculture need to toughen up, to begin the 'great unplug' from the Trump and Musk fascist corporatism and digital landscape, with a sense of liberated sexuality in the process? 

We await.

___

(A.Glass 2025)