12/12/07
Text: Williamson Turn
Photographers: Stephanie Halmos
Is 2007 in America the Year of Living Uneasily? Though we might be in the midst of unexpected placidity, something keeps causing us to revert backwards. Artistically, nostalgia has become a bit too pervasive, whether it’s musicians like Chromeo harkening to a “simpler” time or an ironist such as Ian Whitmore pasting modernity over scenes from American history. When even sci-fi legend William Gibson starts looking to the recent past—as he did in his most recent novel, Spook Country—that’s probably our cue to wonder what the hell is going on around here.
Relief comes from strange quarters—in this case, in the form of a new clothing label out of New York which feels refreshingly comfortable in its own skin and its own times. Shipley & Halmos, an eponymous team of two designers working from a mercifully unpretentious loft in Soho, has emerged with debut collections of men’s and women’s sportswear that manage to feel instantly familiar without leaning on a referential crutch. The clothes are unmistakably cosmopolitan: dark, slender suits and crisply striped dress shirts for men; short, simple dresses and high-waisted shorts for the ladies. Yet there’s none of the cloyingly urban, no grating overstatement about the line. The fabrics are expensive but subtle: classic worsted wool for a gray blazer, pure silk twill for a low-cut chemise and (best of all) a waxed Barbour-style canvas for overcoats and trousers. The designs are clean, almost unadorned, but immediately distinctive. A man’s coat drapes longer than should look good (but does nonetheless). A dress opens dramatically below the arms and arrives at both demure and revealing.
The result is clothing that takes a welcome break from both nostalgia and irony, and a style that is clearly contemporary without looking like much else on the market. According to the designers, that was a natural byproduct of their philosophy. “We weren’t trying to make big statements about arts and politics,” says Jeff Halmos. “We just wanted to dig deeper into what I guess you could call the craft of clothes.” His partner concurs. “Everyone wants to know, ‘What era inspired this detail?’ and so on,” says Sam Shipley. “We didn’t think we had to go any further than our own lives for interesting ideas.” Their studio seems to reflect that approach; a drawing by Shipley’s aunt (of a fairly creepy cat head) is framed on one wall, and Halmos has put up a print of a certain highly recognizable Bauhaus artist (“I liked it in college and I like it now,” he shrugs. “Who cares if it’s played out or not?”). Shipley sits beneath a bizarre smallmouth bass mounted unevenly on a wooden plaque. An ironic Goodwill purchase, right? “I caught it when I was 6, and my grandpa mounted it,” he laughs. “It reminds me of him.”
It is precisely the same sense of relaxed earnestness, coupled with unusual design ideas, that makes the S&H collection notable. The clothes are modest, but one looks twice in spite of the simplicity. Coming at a moment when artists seem to be eschewing the current day for either the sepia past or the overdramatic future, Shipley & Halmos seem to have carved out a class that belongs pleasingly to the present.
