excerpt: R13 - Spring/Summer 2026. Lookbook - New York City

 

"Chris Leba's R13 is New York City, at least representing the romanticized grit of 1970s and early to mid 1980s lower East Side ala CBGB's Sunday punk rock matinees and with his Spring Summer 2026 collection, having shot half of the lookbook in black and white, reflecting a yearning that may be stirring in all of us, that this whole thing needs to begin to slow down, less digital, and more retrofitted analog.  Offering an open question to the viewer: How do we create a influence of eras bygone, without pandering to its nostalgia?  

And thus, this is the dilemma that fashion designers have in recreating and devising a trend, which in turn is then grafted onto the psyche of a popular culture's current time.  To which Leba's R13 has been etching out a renewed version of 'punk' counter culturism since 2009 onto the fashion world, in his respectful homage when a falling apart New York City was aesthetically very cool.  And even in this current odd, hyperreal simulacrum, the paint is peeling once more..."

___

Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/09/r13-springsummer-2026-lookbook-new-york.html

(A.Glass 2025)