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On Sunday morning, a group of men all dressed in silk tops took their places behind mic stands, a keyboard, and a drum set, and started to play Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You).” They said it wouldn’t last, we had to prove them wrong, the singers crooned. Female models, ranging in age from English 101 student to grandma, danced down the runway with energy not seen since ‘90 sitcom theme songs, having such a good time I was ready to order 24 episodes on sight. I hadn’t been to a fashion show vibrating with this much joy since, well, ever.
And I wasn’t alone. The austere white studio, the largest space at regular NYFW venue Spring, was awash with smiley fashion people after Deveaux’s presentation wrapped. We had just seen the second show, and fourth collection overall, since former street-style-shooting wunderkind Tommy Ton took the design helm. Here was a piece of evidence—the latest in a growing body—that the man who was perhaps best known for taking an extremely goofy picture of Kanye West, Virgil Abloh, and friends could, in fact, make it as a big-time fashion designer. Or maybe the show made a bigger, possibly more provocative case: that in 2019, there is maybe nothing better on a big-time fashion designer’s resume than having taken that photo. “I remember just meeting Kanye and Virgil the first time—they just were just such fanboys of fashion and they really wanted to do something,” Ton said. And now that something has been accomplished: “I thought to myself,” Ton said, “if they can do it…”
You don’t necessarily notice how many pictures are actually taken at fashion week until you start paying close attention. Outside the venue, there’s the click-click-click of photographers shooting attendees in their very best. Before the Deveaux show, a woman came around and asked a pair of guests wearing the brand’s clothes if they wouldn’t mind, well, taking a quick picture. And, gosh, during the show, hands shoot up as if in prayer during mass, only they’re stuffed with the holiest fashion-world thing of all: phones open to the camera app. Meanwhile, a small army of photographers is huddled at one end of the venue to clock every single look that traipses down the runway.
This is a world created in part by Tommy Ton, who was, along with Scott “The Sartorialist” Schuman, one of the first people to pay as much attention to what people wore to watch fashion shows as to what they wore while walking in them. You know what happened next: reams of street style galleries, zoo-grade peacocking, and…yes, #influencers. So how did Ton make the leap from beloved street style photographer to burgeoning designer?
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