Willy Chavarria Fall 2018 Menswear.....Fashionweekly....On Fow24news.com

In just a year, Willy Chavarria has arced from aggro streetwear to leather bar–meets–lowrider culture eveningwear to, now, a much more somber sort of daywear.....
His Fall collection and show were not exactly tender—save for a sweet-faced baby who made the finale lap in the arms of his father—but there was definitely a sensitive broodiness hanging in the room. “The message is really a reflection of . . . realness,” said Chavarria afterward. “To be conscious of emotions and the human state, which to me is sadness.” But if that came across as too dismal, he added: “At the same time, it’s to show us as vulnerable. As beautiful.”

Despite the heavy inspiration, which resulted in models with faux-tears dappling their tattooed cheeks, there was actually a lightness to the greatcoats and jackets on display. A long hooded denim trench, almost lab-like in its verticality and relative sterility, was a collection highlight, as was another long, and what appeared to be boiled, wool officer’s coat with a double seaming of buttons down the front.

While print-heavy sweaters have been seen often on runways for a long time, Chavarria achieved something more effective—and something kind of new, or new at least for right now—in his minimalism and shapeliness. Citing his earlier efforts in workwear, shirt jackets and fabric-loaded trousers struck a chord that fit his emotive mission, especially so when styled against bare chests and bare abs. They demonstrated an interplay of less-is-more meets volume-as-protection, a pensive notion, each end of which hinted at ways to retreat from the world as it currently stands. This was a step inward, but forward.