Reese Cooper, 27, has officially entered the stage of life where he needs to prepare for the wedding tour. But when his cousin recently tied knots in South Carolina knots, he found himself in a sarcastic position, after nearly a decade of design, he had to run into a “mass crime” retailer on his way to the airport. “I was like, ‘It’s ridiculous, I need to solve this problem,” the designer recalled in Marais’ showroom.
For spring, Cooper aims to recalibrate outdoor California leisure activities to more mature, tailored and most versatile offers that will easily pass in higher settings while still maintaining a sporty feel. Ripstop Cords tied the waist to a blazer, a groove and a nylon Harrington jacket. The oversized cargo pocket gives buttons or printed ponchos a fresh feature, but also looks clear and refined on black, white and red pricks. As ever, his iconic carabiner was the work of QuonStabiner, whom a former aviation engineer drew on Instagram.
“My personal favorite thing is to take what you traditionally find, and take the right thing away and put it in the wrong place or the opposite place,” the designer explained in his process. “There is nothing inappropriate here. Last Tuesday, Cooper’s family of choice, including stylist Savannah White, joined him for an hour north of Los Angeles to the Angeles National Forest. There, his model posed on a rock in the St. Gabriel River, at a location where the designers found during a hike. In a persuasive detail, he photographed the lookbook with his thumbs up from friends at the local Forest Services (looking for new developments in a new relationship next season). It speaks volumes about Cooper’s interest in community building, a philosophy he absorbed from Virgil Abloh. “If you do something that people want to be around, that should be the point,” he said. People don’t hear this often during fashion week. Let’s see where he takes him next.
