“I’d advise you to wear a diaper,” Willy Chavarria said over the phone earlier this week while chatting about what to expect on his Spring/Summer 2025 runway. It was unclear whether the designer’s blunt advice had anything to do with his newly-minted “Dirty Underwear” line (you know, the one selling soiled, stained and pissed-on undergarments for several hundreds of dollars) or if his daring guidance simply meant the show would be so good you might actually sh*t yourself.
Either way, curiosity was piqued down Wall Street on Friday night, where Chavarria was among the closing acts on the first night of New York Fashion Week, with a Spring/Summer 2025 runway show titled “América,” a fashion manifesto rooted in a call for unity. Inside a sprawling, industrial venue, bright lights flashed on Latin Grammy-nominated artists Yahritza Y Su Esencia, who performed a heartwarming cover of the 1984 classic “Querida” by Juan Gabriel as the precursor to Chavarria’s catwalk commencement.
The collection, both parts “personal” and “swaggy” (Chavarria’s words), was broken into two segments. The first included the 2023 Menswear Designer of the Year’s classic workwear codes, sportswear infusions and dramatic drapery — all stylistic interpretations of America through the eyes of an immigrant, Chavarria explained.
“I got a lot of inspiration from the United Farm Workers Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s liberation movements of the past that have truly brought people together to create change,” Chavarria said before the show. “But also the guy going to work at AT&T with his name on his shirt and his keyring hanging from his pocket because he’s about to open the store.”
Hence, keys dangled from the belt loops on most canvas trousers, while “Willy Chavarria Fashion Services” shirts, fitted with tucked-in ties, paid homage to the working-class uniform, a version of which his Irish-American mother and Mexican-American father wore as immigrant farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
A flashing red light singled a transition. The second half of the show was dedicated to Chavarria’s newly-minted adidas collaboration, which included quarter-zip jackets, athletic jerseys, abstract tops, lightweight shorts and more emblazoned with the quintessential Three Stripes. In full sport mode, Olympic track and field sprinter Noah Lyles emerged as the runway’s anchor, before Chavarria himself led his 68-strong entourage to the finish line in one last lap.
Chavarria, in one word, called the collection “honest,” a fair assessment that sums up the fashioner’s unique force: his powerful, unapologetic interpretations of his own historically disadvantaged identities — his queerness, his biracialism, his immigrant family — that make people with the same experiences feel seen in his clothes.
After the show, V Magazine editor Savannah Sobrevilla well articulated this sensation: “No one prepares you for a world in which your culture is feared, and few people from that culture get the opportunity to show collections as big as Willy’s. He has taken the roughness required to be an immigrant in this country—a roughness that is often conflated with danger—and stripped it down until there was nothing left but pride, tenderness and strength.”
In the end, no diapers were necessary, though some Kleenex might have helped wipe away tears from the eyes of those who felt Chavarria’s impact especially hard.
See Willy Chavarria’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection in the gallery above.