This past weekend [June 11] the LA Live Event Deck housed the MADE Los Angeles festival serving as a bazaar for some of LA’s most popular brands. Along with being an amazing venue to shop and socialize, the event was also used to showcase two of the most popular and controversial brands in clothing, Hood By Air and GOLF WANG. Although both of these brands have been known to push boundaries and shocking consumers, their aesthetics are nearly polar opposites.


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Hood by Air was the first of the event to showcase and it goes without saying that what they had in store was unlike anything imaginable. Viewers and consumers arrived to a low-lit room with no more than a vast pile of sand sitting in the middle of the concrete floor. The ambiance was set by intense strobe lights and a chaotic live performance by alternative artist Yves Tumor of Mykki Blanco’s Dogfood Music Group. The intensity of the scenery and performance coupled perfectly with the new Spring/Summer line. Models with something akin to the mark of the beast painted on their foreheads draped in sweatshirts made for two, lustrous vinyl pants, and oversized t-shirt/dresses frantically paraded around the makeshift sand dune weaving in and out of the standing room only crowd. Whether choreographed or improvised, the violence and ferocity of the models only added to the majesty of the clothes themselves.

Walter Pearce, the brand’s in-house casting director, along with assistant and photographer Aton Ibe held an open casting in DTLA to acquire their wildly eccentric models in an effort to keep the show true to LA street and fashion culture. The clothes from the show were available in real time and a video was released simultaneously on the brand’s site as a part of the event. Some of the pieces shown are still available for pre-order at hoodbyair.com but be warned, these pieces are not for the faint of heart.

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After the pandemonium that was HBA Hallways, there was a brief intermission where the set up was drastically changed for the contrasting GOLF WANG Spring/Summer 2016 release which was Tyler, the Creator’s runway debut. Much to the tone of post-Goblin Tyler, the runway was full of brightly colored flowers and polka-dot that would make Crayola jealous. The beautiful backdrop was set design coordinated with the clothes swimmingly.

Similar to what has been released over the past few years from the Golf Wang brand, this line was full of bright spring colors and patterns embodying youthful happiness in a way that only an Odd Future graduate could. Along with the runway show, Tyler, the Creator staged a surprise performance premiering new music. Along with the surprise set, Tyler also surprised all attendees with a pair of his first shoes from his new shoe line. Some of Tyler’s high profile friends include Kanye West were among many of the stars who showed face at his runway debut. All of the clothes are available at golfwang.com for pre-order, allot 8-10 weeks for shipping.