Christopher John Rogers Returns to NYFW!

0:29This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mel.

0:33I'm so glad he's back. You know, I think he's got such a joyful approach to fashion. And I think we're in such a politically dark moment. I think the sort of joyous nature of his shows is really what we need. The pick me up we need, the kind of antidote we need, the response that we need to this moment. and there isn't any other word to describe his clothes except for their mood boosting, you know, like his color combinations. And I think, honestly, like, to me, that always feels like the most... There are several ways to respond to kind of difficult, tumultuous times, but I think for me that always feels like the most life-affirming way to handle a moment.

1:18And it comes naturally to him. So I'm interested to see what his show will be like. Yeah, we are recording this. It's Wednesday afternoon and this will come out tomorrow. First day of New York Fashion Week. Kalina Strada's show is tomorrow, followed by Christopher John Rogers. It's so funny because I feel like Fashion Week's already started because Marc Jacobs showed. That's true. Marc Jacobs was a big moment. I was obsessed with the beauty of Marc Jacobs, which were little felt stick-ons, like circles either on the cheeks or the lips. It was really giving baby Lynn Yeager vibes. It was, wasn't it?

1:56I saw Lynn Yeager. I felt like she's on the mood board again. It's not the first time that she's been on Mark's mood board, we suspect. It felt like a sequel of sorts to Last Show, which was also at the New York Public Library and similarly oversized cartoon-inspired silhouettes. I've been watching a lot of Daffy Duck at home, and it feels very Daffy and Minnie Mouse. Yeah, those funny shoes with the pointy kind of upturned shoes. I would absolutely trip if I tried to wear those. I had a lot of respect for the models. Here's what I really respect about a Marc Jacobs show. You arrive early because you know he's going to start on time.

2:40You sit in your seat. Everyone's front row. It's a long row of everyone front row. At 7.30 on the dot, 7.29 even, the show begins. at 7.36 the show is over. The models don't even do a walk back. By 7.40 you are out the door, outside, walking down the steps onto Fifth Avenue. It's efficiency at its peak. We love that. Yes. But I was very excited and starstruck because Sofia Coppola was there with Romy Mars, her daughter, who everyone at Vogue.com is obsessed with. Oh, the naughty daughter. The naughty Romy. The naughty TikTok rogue. Yes. TikTok rogue. Everyone here loved her single that she released last year.

3:25Okay. Yeah. So people were into that. What are you looking forward to besides CJR? Well, I have to say here the big frisson of excitement is around the Calvin Klein show and their new designer, Veronica Leone, who Nicole Phelps will be interviewing. That show is on Friday, and it's at the Calvin Klein headquarters in the Garment District. I think we're all excited to see what that is going to look like. They have quite a starry front row planned. It just seems like a lot of energy and resources are putting into making that show a big moment for New York Fashion Week. There's also the new designer at Form, Frances Howey.

4:10Also, everyone should be following Fashion Week on the Vogue app. You can follow the action of my fellow Vogue editors and see what everyone is up to during Fashion Week. And also, obviously, see all of the collections. Not to mention, Choma, have you been playing the quiz on the Vogue app with the new leaderboard? Oh, I need to do that. You can try and compete to be in the top 100. users. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. This I need to do. This I need to do. No, it's a big deal. Choma, you had a crazy day yesterday. I did. I did. So my day begun at 4.30 in the morning. Oh, my God. I got to go on the Eurostar for 6 a.m.

4:58Eurostar train. Not my favorite hour. I'm not a morning person. Everybody knows that I like to have my bone broth around 8 a.m. I am not trying to get up at 4 30. Wow but it was good it was actually really energizing I went got on a Eurostar went to um to our April cover story set in Paris and I can't wait to talk about it because it was a really fun experience so more on that later then I got back on the train at 3 p.m. Oh my god so I had very little time um in Paris and then I took the Eurostar and was back at the Lightroom because it's literally 10 minutes walk from the Eurostar terminal. Oh, my God.

5:42You went directly from the Eurostar to your Lightroom thing? I did. Good grief. I did, where I met Daniel Lee, who's a creative director of Burberry. Wonderful. We had a really wonderful conversation. It was actually his first time doing a talk. Really? Yeah. It was his first time. Okay. But he was an absolute natural and just had so many great things to say, so many insights. Give us a highlight. I mean, I loved hearing him talk about how working for Burberry has kind of had him, taking him all over the country to places like the Isle of Skye, to the Lake District, has kind of fallen in love with the UK again.

6:23I mean, he spent, he was at Bottega, he was the creative church of Bottega, so he spent a lot of time in Italy. And, you know, you just often, when you end up in London, working in London, And you don't necessarily go outside of your comfort zone that often. And most of the time when you're going on vacation, you're going to go to Europe or further afield. You're not necessarily going to go to the Isle of Skye. So he was just talking about shooting campaigns on the side of a mountain and with Agnes Dean who wanted to go like dive into this lake. I forgot about Agnes Dean. Yeah, yeah. She has four children.

6:59Oh, God. God bless. I know. And lives upstate New York. So he tempted her out of kind of, of her sort of upstate it all and into a lake in the Lake District. So it was great. It was a really lovely talk and hearing him talk about just all the wonderful people he's also brought to Burberry and the places that he's shown. because he's shown in kind of unusual parks and some of the things that he unearthed in the archives, some of the sort of, I didn't realize that. Burberry also made tents, which is why they had these massive tents. That's why they had so much canvas on hand or khaki. Yeah. Okay.

7:41Wait, Choma, you wore Burberry last year to the Met. I love that look. That was one of my favorites. I did. It was one of my favorite Met looks I've ever worn. Honestly, in retrospect, you probably should have saved it for this year. since this year the theme is tailored for you. I know, tailored for me. I know, it really was tailored for me. So I kind of am a year early. But I'm excited. I think it's going to, I think it's such a cool dress code. Yes, the dress code for people who didn't see. If you listen to this podcast and you didn't see them at dress code, you have a problem. But the dress code was announced Tuesday morning, and it is tailored for you.

8:27And also the 30-ish person host committee, which includes so many creatives from across different mediums and is such a great group, an interesting group of people, was also announced. So that's very exciting for us. We've also been talking internally about how I feel like the obvious interpretation of tailored for you is traditional men's tailoring and bespoke suiting. However, we are in such an age of vintage rewear and sort of archive, bringing back archive looks, and I feel like it can also apply to tailoring a vintage look for yourself. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Tailoring of all kinds. There you go.

9:19I would love to see some vintage tailoring. Yeah. And I think also given the sort of historic sweep of the show, that would make so much sense. Is there anyone you're really excited to see how they interpret the theme? I mean, Coleman Domingo is on the host committee. I mean, I know that you're a big Coleman fan. I'm a big Coleman lady. Coleman obviously is going to wear Valentino. is going to look amazing. So I'm excited for that. I mean, you know, I'm a big Pharrell fan. I think I'm interested to see what he wears, how he interprets the theme. And just as someone who's, you know, he's a creative director of a house.

9:59So he has ample time to get it absolutely perfect and to do something really special. And I'm also excited to see who he decides to bring, if he gets to bring someone as a co-host, which I imagine he will. So that'll be exciting. And then I know that some of the people on the committee, I'm really interested. I'm meeting with Grace Wells Bonner in a couple of weeks for lunch, and I know that I'm kind of excited to see who she's going to be dressing and how she's going to attend as well. So that'll be exciting. Ayo Edabiri always really embraces a theme well, so that's fun. And Spike Lee and Tanya Lewis Lee always look great.

10:44Also Usher. Yeah. He loves some custom tailoring. Dochi. Do we think she'll wear Tom Brown, maybe? After her Grammy. Yeah. Her Grammy moment. I mean, all the kind of designers who focus on tailoring, they're going to have so much fun. Yes, totally. Including Tom Brown. Yeah, I do feel like this theme is tailored for Tom.

11:11Choma, any lingering thoughts on the Grammys? It feels like a lifetime ago already, but they were, it was pretty fab. Like, it was just a great show. People really showed up to the red carpet. It just felt like a very exciting night. It really did. I mean, from like Kendrick's Canadian Tuxio, which I loved, which was so great, to, I mean, Chapel Rhone and vintage Jean-Paul Gaultier. I thought it was actually kind of a good night for fashion. I thought everybody kind of, I thought there was some really like fun moments. And, you know, I mean, yeah, take your pick. I loved Ray's performance. I'm a big fan of hers.

11:56And I think just for her to sort of be exposed to that on that platform to an American audience, I think that was probably the first time. I know. I didn't really know Ray. A lot of American listeners. I mean, I don't know anything. Oh, I've seen her live and she is just exceptional. Don't She's performance was everything you ever wanted. And her getting best rap album. What? I was laughing so hard at Jose's Instagram saying that because Tom Brown dressed all 30 dancers. Jose was like, not not what I imagined the Tom Brown office like the night before a show. Yep. So was that. I mean, she's only the third woman to get that.

12:38That is crazy. I thought her speech was really touching. It was all lots of lovely moments of the night. Liam Hess wrote a great piece about how it finally felt organically like women owned the night in a really purposeful but also, as I said, authentic way. Like it wasn't performative at all. I love Beyonce looking truly shocked and Blue Ivy. I know. Blue Ivy being like, get on with it.

13:12I mean it's like insane that even Beyonce would be like truly shocked because I know because of the track record of the Grammys because of like how they've shut so many people out in the past that she finally after all these years I know decades it's like insane to me it's crazy it's really but it's it it does you're right it does feel like authentically women are part of like are just leading the way right now. Yeah. And so exciting. Choma, big sports happening this weekend. Yeah. Super Bowl. Taylor's boyfriend is playing with me. I think I used that joke last week. It's the Kendrick Lamar Taylor Swift show, and there will be football involved.

13:54But also, GQ is having a huge palooza. Yeah. There is a Bodhi GQ fashion show in New Orleans on Friday night. Wow. So cool. Yeah. She's showing her new Bodhi rec collection. And you can watch. You can live. It'll be live streamed on GQ.com. And then the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Eagles are playing. I also were very into the rivalries, the fan rivalries. Like Gigi Hadid lives in Pennsylvania and is dating Bradley Hooper, who's a huge Eagles fan. And she's besties with Taylor, who's obviously rooting for the Chiefs. So we're very excited for lines to be drawn for the blondie besties. Oh, my God.

14:45Apparently it's supposed to be terrible weather for New York Fashion Week. Nicole warned me. Although it was Groundhog's Day on Sunday, which I'm weirdly invested in. And Paxatawney Phil, who is the more famous groundhog, but only has a 30-something percent success rate or accuracy rate. Phil said that it's going to be a long winter. However, Staten Island Chuck, the competing groundhog of the moment, has an 87 percent accuracy rate. And he says it's going to be an early spring. Wow. I know. I know that you are eager to hear about this. So eager to hear about this. My niece is a big fan of Staten Island, Chuck, and she almost went.

15:32She tried to go to Staten Island, but it was he comes out at 730 a.m. And it was too much. All right. That is our Vogue News of the Week. So much is happening. We will be back in a moment.

15:52Thank you.

16:22So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

16:32And we're back with Nicole and Jose's fabulous conversation with the one and only Christopher John Rogers.

16:42Well, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you here. And we are likewise excited that you are back on the New York Fashion Week schedule for the first time in five years. Yeah. So it was pre-pandemic before you left. Why did you decide to drop off the schedule? So initially when we won the fund in 2019, our next show was the first show after we had won. And so it was like a really big show for us. And I thought that it was going to be like an exciting beginning to my career officially launching, I guess. And then in 2020, when we were in Paris for market selling the collection, COVID hit.

17:24And so it was really strange to sort of go from this really big high to sort of this bout of uncertainty and not really knowing what was going to be next. And so sold the collection and then came back to New York and obviously everything was shut down. So we couldn't really develop another collection to show in September in the way that I would have liked. And also we didn't even know if we were going to have shows. So we went back to the studio. My team at the time, we all kind of were in our own little COVID bubble. And so we were able to go to the studio safely and start developing some new work, experimenting with some new things and released a collection.

18:03I think it was in October. And so it kind of was in betwixt seasons. And we had like more of a preseason delivery with that collection. And it sold out immediately once it hit stores. And we had like recuts for the first time. And people were really like buying the clothes and responding well to them. So we thought that the cadence and the timing felt really smart. And so we kind of stuck with that for the next few years. And it really helped build our business in a healthy way and in a way that was really specific to us. Yeah. That was also the season you launched Knits. Correct. Yeah. The famous rainbows, which we'll talk about later.

18:42So why did you want to come back to your fashion work? Because, of course, after the pandemic, you came back to the runway. You did a show in May. That was actually the first show I went to as part of Vogue, which was really fun. But you had done a show in May right before the Met Gala. Yeah. Why did you want to come back to New York? What's changed for you, like to the schedule? For me, one thing that I've always loved is, I guess, contributing to a moment as an artist and also celebrating with my peers. And when we were kind of showing during preseason, we didn't really get to do that. There weren't very many shows happening at the same time.

19:20And it just sort of felt right. I think one thing that I kind of pride myself on and that we pride ourselves on as a team is sort of doing what makes sense for us in the moment, regardless of what else is happening. And it just felt like the right time to sort of celebrate our community, the fact that, you know, we've been in business for as long as we have. How long has it been now? Ooh. Like six years, officially? Almost six. So still very young, but it felt right. But your star really rose sort of off of the New York Fashion Week official calendar. You weren't there, and you have become one of the big draws of the city.

20:00Looking at the Fashion Week from the outside, what do you think of New York? Do you get excited when you look at that schedule? There's a lot of people who take a pretty critical look. Yeah, people have a lot of things to say about New York Fashion Week. The girls have a lot to say. Not too much in my city. Okay, not too much. But yeah, do tell us, how do you feel about New York Fashion Week? I love New York. I mean, it was always a dream for me to live here, to work here, to have a business here and build my brand here. And I feel really, like, grateful and blessed to be able to still be making work.

20:36And I don't know. I think for me, New York kind of feels a little more so than the other cities, I'd say. A bit more underground, a bit more a space to cultivate. So hackneyed, but, like, the emerging or the developing or, like, something on the outside. Simultaneously, it's also a place for those kinds of voices to manifest and grow into actual businesses. So I think it's really exciting. I mean, there's definitely a lot that I think could be done to help support those voices even more. But I'm really excited for where it's at and where it can go and the diversity of the voices that are speaking right now.

21:15Yeah. I mean, we saw this happen, I think, at the CFA Awards last year. Yes. It was a really exciting time to sort of, you know, see Willy Chavaria win men's wear, Raul Lopez accessories, Rachel Scott women's wear, Henry Zankov, emerging designer. It was a doll sweep. Yeah, it was a doll sweep. Exactly. It was a group chat sweep, which is really funny. You've won two TV Awards? Emerging and Women's Award? Nice. how do you feel coming back into the week with sort of a great track record behind you i mean we were just talking about we just started exactly pressure but like last week i was spiraling i was like i hate it it's scary like the collection um but then i kind of was took stock of it yesterday with my team and we're definitely seeing something new i think with this collection.

22:14And I think anytime you take a risk or do something new or feel a little uncomfortable, you're like moving forward. And so I'm excited. There definitely is sort of pressure in the air or some anticipation rather. And so I'm trying to channel that or look more towards that than sort of feeling nervous. But I think it's fun. It's going to be a good week, I think. Yeah, I think so too. I want to go back to something you just said, which was that you were spiraling a week ago. Yeah. Do you manifest that in front of your team, in front of your staff, or is it something that you keep really internal?

22:49Both. I'm a Libra, so it has to be both. I think I try to be as respectful of my team as possible, and, like, they're working so hard. Right now we're a small team of four that does everything, and so I don't want them to overextend themselves, but this weekend I called my designer, and I was like, girl, is everything okay? I was like, is this? She's like, it's fine. She's like, there's enough to play with. Like, everything's really strong. So it's great to have people on your team that sort of can snap you back to reality. And Christina, my brand and strategy director, is also such a godsend.

23:23Like, she always reminds me of who I am and what we're doing. And I think that's also really important, too, to stop the spiral, you know. Well, talking about who you are, you are from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and you started designing for comic book characters. How would you say that your very early experiences doing that informed what we saw when you started coming out and showing here in New York? Oh, I think a sense of urgency. I think a gestural line. I think a love of color. Something that sort of stands out and makes you take notice because there's something to say and you can't wait to say it.

24:05I think the idea of like imbuing someone with a sense of power, giving someone license to explore a power that they didn't know that they had, this idea of like transformation or less of transformation but stepping into yourself, I think, your trueness is sort of what I've gleaned from comic books or anime or fantasy. What were your favorite comic book? I loved X-Men. I love the idea that it wasn't, I mean, I guess they were in hiding, but it was this idea that they were mutants. They were weird. They were who they were. And I thought that was beautiful. And I really identified with that. Obviously, Love, Sailor Moon.

24:45Yes. Cardcaptors. The real diva. Cardcaptor. Get into her. Get into her. And even though, I guess, cartoons totally spies, the femme, those were like kind of my sessions. Totally spies. Love a lip gloss. Love a lip gloss. So moving past the comic book characters and into your formal career as a designer, after graduation, you worked at DVF for Diane von Fursterberg, right? You're a network designer. You worked actually with Henry Zankov. Yes. Which is part of the lore not everyone knows. Exactly. Which we love. But I'm curious, what did you learn from Diane, but also from DVF, like from that experience in general?

25:26A lot. Jonathan Saunders was the creative director at the time, and I was obsessed with him growing up and his work and his use of color and his references. Like once I got the job and the call, I was so excited. It was my first job. I was so excited to work and learn from, you know, these people and to sort of see how the references manifested into clothes that were directional but also clothes that people could wear was something really powerful for me. Henry was actually my first boss, actually. And so learning from him the technicalities of netwear, the possibilities, how to take someone else's direction and point of view and funnel it into something, merging your own at the same time, and also editing too.