Area’s New Era Embraces Camp & Club Couture

Fashion loves a curated, high-level mood board, so when I walked into the Area studio to meet their new creative director Nicholas Aburn, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a wall of blurry screenshots with multiple eras of It Girls. It was both the antithesis and apotheosis of a curated reference deck. Think: street-style screengrabs of Alex Consani, Charli XCX, Debi Mazar, and obscure Instagram models, Nick Cave’s infamous fuzzy Soundsuits, and other digital-age ephemera. Auburn operated on a vibe for his first Area runway show, and told me his goal was not to heavily reference, but “find what that New York mix looks like today.”

It’s a new dawn in fashion, with more overturn at top jobs than we’re equipped to process. New York is a unique animal, and several brands founded in the 21st century are entering brand-new eras. Area is the New York party-girl label beloved by both Tyla and The Real Housewives of Miami cast. They’re known for their cutout denim, crystallized party dresses, and wacky shows that include googly-eye gowns and banana bra tops. Aburn appreciates the strong visual language of the brand, but emphasized that “flattering clothes and looking beautiful is cool. I don't want to be so intellectual that we lose that.”

Aburn cut his teeth at Tom Ford and, most recently, at Balenciaga, where he oversaw the couture collections. His keen eye for reduction and proportion came through in his tight 42-look debut, which ushered Area into newer territory. So many inspirations cropped up in our conversation — Leigh Bowery, Rihanna, gay guys in Bushwick, Miami club rats, ‘20s flapper girls, Carrie Bradshaw — and each of them got their shine. The first look was all Carrie: a black hoodie, a strappy tank top underneath, and cargo pedal-pushers, ready for either a bodega run or a night at, say, Baby Grand. The Area-isms still abounded (crystal hoop and shoelace earrings, up-to-there skirts in denim and taffeta), but his palpable excitement about pieces like an upside-down slip dress, a relaxed black tuxedo skirt, or a navy satin hoodie (which was already developed by March and also what he wore for his finale bow) showed his appreciation for the low-key side of Area.

He balanced the couture and camp with the reality of needing a sexy minidress capably: “It's taking these references to something glam and kind of f*cking it up a bit, but not so much that you don't see the hot.” Other pieces that fit the “hot” bill include the crystal-embellished pointelle bodysuits, or as he says, “my ode to Brandy Melville,” which fit under maxi skirts and his excellent denim offerings, and also allow club girls an easier price point to buy into the brand. As the show progressed, so did the severity of the looks. The all-black run had, in Aburn’s words, “a sense of danger or something that a good party has. It’s chaotic.” The nocturnal looks gave way to the straight-up camp Area is known around the world for — he emphasized in the studio that “it's not a new brand, it's a new show.”

Editorial stylists will no doubt clamor over the finale of richly realized pure fashion, including the bandage-style crystal dress, the massive gift-topping ribbon mini, the campy sequin dress, and the broken-glass confetti New York T-shirt that bounces in motion. The latter will be produced and available for the few daring customers who can drop five figures on something precious — yet something that anyone’s inner child will smile at. For these final pieces, the genesis was pure imagination and classic New York happenstance: “I saw a wedding by our studio and I was like, ‘Man, confetti makes you happy. You look at confetti and you feel happy.’ And that's what I wanted.” Based on the grins on top editors’ faces leaving the show, he achieved his goal.