Esteban Cortazar Returns to the Runway
T: The New York Times Style Magazine | September 2014
There are fashion prodigies, and then there’s Esteban Cortazar. The designer debuted his first collection at New York Fashion Week at the age of 17 - the youngest person ever to do so - before moving to Paris at 23 to take the helm of creative director at Emanuel Ungaro, where he remained for two years. More recently, he has released capsule collections for Net-a-Porter under his own name, earning him countless “comeback kid” monikers in the press. Now 30, still living in Paris and armed with new backers, Cortazar is preparing for a full relaunch of his namesake line. And the spring/summer 2015 show, which will be held tomorrow at his spacious Marais studio, is shaping up to be one of Paris Fashion Week’s most anticipated events.
The collection, seen for the first time here, represents a conceptual step forward for Cortazar. The designer says he felt a lot of “tension and uncertainty” over the past two years, a time in which he struggled to find investors to jump-start his label. “I just started to think about how I could make the fabrics feel the way I was feeling,” he says. Some pieces cling to the body like armor, while others unravel like paper streamers. Leather and metal hardware reference a favorite childhood activity of Cortazar’s, horseback riding at his family’s Colombian farm.
Cortazar likens the overall effect to a girl who “doesn’t want to be so immaculate anymore — so she releases herself completely.” And in that moment, he says, “that’s when she really finds herself.”