Chuks Collins AW23
REFLECTION
After a year break from the New York Fashion Week calendar due to a heart condition then a cancer diagnosis,
designer CHUKS COLLINS returns with a new collection, a spin-off from his last one.
You can access collection look images and videos here
NEW YORK, NY- Reflection, the new AW23 men’s and women’s ready-to-wear collection by design House CHUKS COLLINS was unveiled on the official New York Fashion Week calendar. Focusing on time and freedom, it’s a spin off from the House’s last collection. Just as we go through different phases of life, reflecting is crucial. Collins has incorporated upcycled materials from previous sample pieces and reconstructed them, as well as sustainably sourced fabrics like donated upholstered vegan leather, lace, and repurposed velvet and mesh.
“It’s important that we maximize the process of sustainability,” says Collins. “Part of reflection is me also looking through my studio to see all these pieces, some I’ve donated, but are others there waiting to be thrown out and added to landfill? No, I choose to be different and to do more for the planet.”
With this collection of jewel tones, greens, and shades of purples Collins has drawn out human abilities and desires and how they create infinite possibilities by incorporating the human muscular system and the metamorphosis of a butterfly from its first stage in a cocoon. The sartorial storytelling that Collins has crafted with the collection can be seen in the beautiful tailoring. Class and elegance are worked in an elegant way that doesn’t harm the planet, yet elevates our sense of self and style.
This is the first time in a year since the pandemic and since his last show that Collins has unveiled a collection. “I started feeling sick and had to deal with a heart condition that almost took my life and then cancer came knocking. So, I had to take the whole of 2022 and even up to now with ongoing treatments to focus on my health, but I’m in a much better place to move around. It was tough staying away from doing the things I love most, but it was also part of a personal healing process for me, as I’ve been working since I was 14-years-old without hardly any breaks. The past two years has been a time of much perspective and reflection.”
The presentation was filmed live at BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, a dance company in the heart of the Bronx. Collins has lived in the Bronx for the past decade and it’s a beautiful sartorial melody for him to unveil the CHUKS COLLINS AW23 men’s and women’s collection.
CHUKS COLLINS:
Fashion designer and multi-disciplinary visual artist, Chuks Collins uses the full spectrum of creativity to tell unique stories of personal expression: his own, as well as those of his clients. He has dressed celebrities from Kerry Washington, to the Jonas Brothers, Quincy, Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst, Trevor Jackson, Claudia Jordan, and Terrance Nance. Born out of a near-death experience that Collins had, his work takes shape across numerous mediums, spanning fashion, creative direction and styling, and humanitarian entrepreneurialism in his couture and sustainable lifestyle brand, TASOU.
CHUKS COLLINS designs honor the women and men, who live their lives fully, unbothered by societal norms, and with no choice but to self-express. His collections are drawn on the inspiration of global roots and education, as his house weaves together a future-forward aesthetic, the origin of which is deliberately not easily pin-pointed: elegant, unexpected originality sits at the very core of each design and piece.