Spring/Summer Fashion 2009: Feral Childe

Jasmin Malik Chua
Living / Style
June 24, 2009

Photo credit: Feral Childe

Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson of Feral Childe are taking us on a road trip this summer, destination Yosemite National Park. Designed, cut, and sewn in Brooklyn from sustainable fabrics (organic cotton, soy, hemp, mill-end scraps), then hand-dyed and hand-painted, the designers' Spring/Summer 2009 collection includes hand-cast buttons, so no two exactly alike. The Ansel coat—named for Ansel Adams and made from a mill-end hemp/cotton blend—offers a canvas for an abstract depiction of Yosemite's jagged outcroppings in searing neon orange. And the Picnic blazer, which has angled pockets and a extended coattail, is all business in front, party inside, with a reclaimed pinstripe seersucker exterior that conceals a vibrant red, black, and purple lining.

The plum seersucker Snappy top, with its military-style, double-breasted button closure, is a fresh take on the male/female dichotomy we've been seeing everywhere lately. Another stunner: The Pleated Tee dress, a lightweight soy-jersey frock overtaken by magenta Xs and featuring feminine pintuck pleats below the drop-waist.