A week before their Paris Fashion Week debut, the young designers Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee, who design under the moniker Vaquera, seem calm, even though a fabric is yet to arrive, two outfits have yet to be begun, and they have to ship their entire collection — and themselves — across the Atlantic. The label is based in New York, even if its name is Spanish — it means “cowgirl” and was chosen by founder DiCaprio because he was reading Tom Robbins’s 1976 novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues at the time.
That was in 2013, when he was just 22; a group of friends, comprising Taubensee and two others, Claire Sullivan and David Moses (neither still involved), joined in 2016. They collectively designed and physically constructed Vaquera’s collections in their free time while they all held down second jobs, mostly in retail. Now, however, Vaquera is a full-time concern for the remaining duo.
The Vaquera designers describe their work as “fashion fan-fiction” — essentially an amateur work created by a fan, unauthorised but based around an existing work. The most famous example is probably E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey novels, a fantasised, sexualised retelling of the relationship between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan from the Twilight books and films, which gained a momentum all its own.
What does that mean in fashion terms? Shout-outs to great designers of the past, nods to Martin Margiela and John Galliano, a clasp-top granny purse fashioned into a pinafore dress that recreates a Yohji Yamamoto design from 2001, and a series of T-shirts bearing faces of avant-garde designers, including Vivienne Westwood, like band tees.
“In music, it’s so normal to do a cover song,” says 31-year-old DiCaprio, via Zoom. (Taubensee is 32) “That’s something that we’re interested in bringing to the fashion world. It’s something that we struggle with — this idea of ownership.” The brand has indeed attracted grassroots criticism across social media for close homages, like that stitch-for-stitch Yamamoto redux. It’s an idea always trickier in fashion than music, or indeed art, where appropriation is a form all its own.
Ironically it was one of their “covers” that brought them to the attention of Comme des Garçons, who now support their business through their brand-development division named Dover Street Market Paris (DSMP). In the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring 2019 exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion, there was a Vaquera minidress fashioned to resemble a gargantuan Tiffany & Co velvet jewellery pouch — Vaquera often likes making clothes that look like other things, blown up big, such as a heart-shaped chocolate box in padded satin engulfing the whole body, or a pouffe of fabric topped with a metre-wide Christmas present ribbon rosette.
Kawakubo admired the bag-lady look in the museum, which the Met’s costume curator Andrew Bolton relayed to the designers. “We were floored that she had any idea who we were, much less that she was interested,” DiCaprio says. Bolton then put them in contact with Adrian Joffe, Kawakubo’s husband and president of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market. They hit it off.
A year later, Vaquera were in dire straits. “We had hit like a wall in New York, no money, barely had a collection made,” says DiCaprio — bemoaning the lack of support for young talent in the city. They reached out to Joffe and Dover Street Market — who started stocking Vaquera in spring 2020 — for help. The retailer suggested holding a cocktail event in its New York store. Vaquera instead staged a guerrilla fashion show around the racks, having made a collection in a week. It caused a stir, and DSM loved it. “Then they came to our showroom that season, and said: let’s work together. How can we help you?” DiCaprio recalls. DSMP announced its support of Vaquera in September 2020.
“I don’t think that we would still be here if not for them,” adds Taubensee. “For so long people were definitely interested in us — but I think people didn’t have a lot of faith in us either, at the same time. Comme des Garçons actually understood more than anyone what we needed.” And that was help with distribution, marketing, press requests and production of samples. Almost half of Vaquera’s forthcoming autumn/winter 2022 collection was produced by Comme des Garçons’ factories, and the designs include down jackets, handbags, full-fashioned knitwear and jewellery, “stuff we could never have made ourselves,” says Taubensee. “Something that we struggled with was that our shows are exciting. But we weren’t selling anything, really.” Since DSMP became involved in manufacturing and wholesaling its clothes, the number of global Vaquera stockists has expanded to 40. And alongside fantastical perambulating chocolate boxes, its clothes include more commercially savvy pieces such as oversized tailoring, bra-tops and easy T-shirt dresses.
The collection, unveiled this evening, riffs on the city of Paris — Vaquera will show in Dover Street Market’s new event space there, a 17th-century hôtel particulier in the Marais, now named 3537. “It’s about the vague idea of love,” says DiCaprio. “The city of love and our love for fashion, our love for our friends and family and ourselves. And you know — what do you sacrifice for love? How is love inspiring? How is it limiting? And what does that look like, in a garment?” Now, DiCaprio and Taubensee will show us.
Find out about our latest stories first — follow @financialtimesfashion on Instagram
