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

 

(Images:  R13.  2025)

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.  

And the aesthetics of grit and grime very much continues to resonate as a stylized focal point for Leba, crafting the mix and match looks, into his coordinated chaos.  Even if Leba, for his latest collection, has conjured the birth of Punk on November 25, 1973 at CBGB's, four years before the late English duo Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood repackaged punk rock for the U.K. aundance, and sold it back to the Americans.  We spiritually show that respect to the iconoclast, of the last 50 years

Leopard, flower and cartature prints, denim, three quarter inch pants, drapey t-shirts, loosely attached ties, blazers, vests which were the original punk rock jackets, chains, studs and sex appeal.  And just when the 1977 NYC blackout hit, while you and your favourite lover, were sitting on an outside fire escape of a dingy rundown West Village Hotel, knocking back tequila shots.  As she's wearing a paisley, albeit worn out with holes, boho chic punk hybrid look, banana, neck chains, and a studded wristband.   Half zonked, as the city goes dark and you both embraced.  Whispering into her ear. 

"Cool, the aliens have invaded, and we don't give fuck"

___

(A.Glass 2025)