At Luar Spring 2025, Punks Have Expensive Taste
Luar brought its usual Brooklyn runway show to Rockefeller Center for spring 2025—a collection that may have been designer Raul Lopez’s most detailed yet. Subverting the usual tourist garb for that signature Luar look, those attending the show were easy to spot: rather than sensible walking shoes and backpacks, the crowd wore latex, giant shoulders, and floor-length trench coats. There were two chopped-up cars formed together like a sculpture flanking the runway, where massive speakers blared noise music at very high decibels. The first looks were a sculptural bodysuit with a couture-level train, sheer sculpted jackets with zippered panels, and suiting with slices of sheer mesh to give a floating effect.
Lopez titled the collection “El Boca Quedó,” which translates to “in your mouth, my name stays.” Speaking from his studio a few days before the show, the designer explained the idea further: “When you walk away from a group, they’re going to be like, ‘Oh, Raul's so nice.’ Or they’re going to be like, ‘Oh, I can’t stand that bitch.’ You actually do stay in people’s mouths, even when you walk away.”
Luar shows are always buzzy—and the ink-black runway, loud music, and front-row guests including Madonna and Ice Spice only added to the excitement. Offset and Julez Smith (Solange’s son) walked in the show. Some models wore corporate suits with a Luar twist—tighter, leaner, more subversive, and paired with wig cap-like hats or ski goggle-size sunglasses. Lopez pulled from the nostalgic feeling of his time as a teenage emo kid and his lifeling punk identity. “I always tell people, ‘Girl, I’m a very dark mistress,’” he said. “I knew who I was, but I started living in my truth. I learned how to navigate my family and their friends, and then my friends in downtown, the whole arts and fashion scene. I learned how to merge these two worlds, and how to dress accordingly—where I can be at my grandmother’s house in the Bronx and then take the D train all the way to West 4th Street.”
The more literal punk elements came through in tight silhouettes that buttoned or zippered off, along with jackets and pants featuring detachable, zippered panels. There were speedos paired with glittering skinny scarves, tailored tops deconstructed and trailing to the floor, and the house’s signature Ana bag was reworked into a backpack, or left trailing with fringe and feathers. “I think people think punk is a specific style, and it isn’t,” Lopez said. “There are different forms of it. You can be in a suit and be punk.” Luar’s punks have expensive taste, too: clearly, they covet knee-high boots, leathers made of shells, cigarette pants with neat, visible seams that the wearer can detach. The backs of some outfits came with surprises, like billowing cocoons of sculpted fabric, or, in another case, a bouquet of dollar bills.
This season, there’s been talk among the fashion crowd about the future of NYFW: what it means, where it’s going. Luar demonstrated that the heart of it all can be found in indie designers with a strong point of view. “New York is this concrete jungle, and I know it sounds cliché, but it is,” he added. You have to fight or you get swallowed up.”
