Interview Arielle Chambers

Photography Imhotep Hester At Street Vue

An array of earth tones sprawled across the backstage area pre-show. In his debut NYFWM presentation, designer Dexter Cheston created head to toe looks, which fit cohesively for the FW16 runway on Thursday, February 4, 2016. His collection, DEXTERDEXTERDEXTER mixed innovative tailoring with classic separates.  The modern cut of the garments gave an edgy feel, while the tans and blacks screamed vintage-in perfect partnership.  Notable separates of the collection include the footwear.  The almost-moccasin footwear gave a twist to the standard outfit. Cheston wished to project the theme of “simple integrity” in the pieces. DEXTERDEXTERDEXTER pushes the limits of traditional suits and accessories and fulfills this integrity of design.

Please share a bit about the inspiration behind your Fall/Winter 2016 menswear collection?

With is collection I read a quote from Coco Chanel, “A trendy dress is easy yet a black dress is difficult”.  So I took that and compared it to our classic silhouettes that we did for men, and they are not trendy, they’re very classic and sometimes challenging to create into a trendy look. I was really playing around with that concept and also introducing new fabrics along with it. Overall, its much looking at the classic and making it work for the modern day.

How did you overcome those challenges, you mentioned it was challenging and I wanted to know how?

It wasn’t that difficult, we went back to the silhouettes we used for resort and we just started to play with more fabrics and skins. We started to introduce more silhouettes and then we just stayed with our classic. I think that was the easiest thing to do, in order to convey the look.

What’s your favorite piece from the collection? 

I love all of the pieces, but I would say the bags are my favorite. They’re canvas, and we introduced a flatter styled canvas bag this season. It’s simpler and easy to wear, and you could do whatever you want with canvas. The fabric is a cotton fabric that we did in beige, black and chocolate and I love all of them. 

What is one word or phrase that you want your audience to understand from your collection?

I would say integrity. We’re really coming in as a new brand, and we have multiple product segments that we’re really are driving with the collection. So that was one thing we were able to achieve with our first menswear collection.

So is this your first collection?

No. We introduced resort 2016 last summer and we followed up with spring/summer in September last year. Now we’re following up with a ready to wear menswear fall/winter collection. With this collection we presented a full line that consists of bag, shoes and eyewear. Altogether this completely shows the integrity of the brand and the fact that we want to take it forward.