The 2023 Shows

...and the Ace Hotel, DV Cycling & Bode Womenswear

Jan 22, 2023

Clockwise from Top.

Paris Fashion Week

The fashion calendar kicked back into gear, after a quiet few months over the holidays. In the past week or so, the big luxury players showed off their FW23 collections. Some details we have been noting:

Statement tote bags: Loewe, Prada
Futuristic footwear: Dior, Prada, Botter
Auteur’s art project: Kid Super’s Louis Vuitton, Bode

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Ace Hotels Acquired

The hotel chain, famous for its lobby scene and millennial friendly decor, was recently bought for $85M:

Ace Group International, the operator of a buzzy brand of 11 open Ace lifestyle hotels, will be acquired by Sortis Holdings, a Portland, Oregon-based hospitality firm, the companies said on Tuesday.

Ace Hotels were quite a thing in the early 2000’s, and we’ve been to a few locations around the country. Fashion brands would frequently use the Nomad location here in NYC for showroom appointments, where I mistakenly knocked on a celebrity’s door. But it’s buzz dimmed considerably in the past few years, with affluent travelers opting to spend more at luxury Rosewood, Belmond and Four Seasons properties, rather than opt for the Ace whose lobbies always resembled a WeWork before WeWork existed.

Having said all that, when we finally go to Kyoto, we will probably stay at the Ace if we are priced out of the Aman.

District Vision Cycling

The cult mindful running brand released a cycling collection that includes this $30K titanium touring rig:

The District Vision Cycling collection was developed as an homage to the rich traditions of off-road cycling in the 1970’s in Japan and California – to the pursuit of using bicycles to experience the landscape in new ways. Long before the term ‘gravel’ was invented by the cycling industry to sell more bikes and market highly competitive races, there existed a world of experimentation, exploration, camaraderie, and the pursuit of a transcendence that can only be achieved by moving through a landscape on two wheels under one’s own power.

Finally someone to compete with the too-buttoned-up Euro cycling brands like Rapha and Pas Normal! We already have a bunch of DV gear, but the real discovery was the Monfefo Ginger Shots they offer in their showroom. Raquel has been buying that stuff by the case!

Bode Womenswear

This week in Paris, Emily Bode released her first Women’s collection, walking both Men’s and Women’s looks down the runway:

The new collection is inspired by a year Bode Aujla’s mother spent as a seasonal worker in a house on Cape Cod. “The woman my mum worked for was 90 years old at the time and would dress in formal evening gowns for dinner every night. So we have historical reproductions of 1920s dresses, 1940s satin and velvet gowns and costume jewellery. That will be juxtaposed with clothes my mum would have worn at the time, more casual 1960s and 1970s college clothes.”

The women’s collection seems like it’s not sure who its customer is. Their women’s customer has been buying men’s, so why not tailor the menswear for the ladies, rather than offer Ulla-looking dresses1? Or worse, Michael Kors? Perhaps there is a customer in their LA store for sequined dresses, but not in NYC. We have been looking for a guayabera from the Men’s collection to share, as the the menswear is what Bode does best. Look at Look 28 - bunny cardigan!

We talk more about the Womenswear launch on this week’s podcast - including this Christmas Tree look.