Backstage at LUAR A/W 2023 shot by Maxwell Vice

Inviting us to enter a modern-day Gilded Era for LUAR’s AW23, Raul Lopez explores Calle Pero Elegante, translating to mean “street elegance” in Spanish. Growing up he was inspired by the fluidity of the downtown New York scene.

For LUAR’s AW23 collection presented at New York Fashion Week, he remembers being a kid in Williamsburg, sitting on a park bench watching from a conservative distance as the laws of the land were laid down; not by traditional authority figures, but those mafiosas who ran the neighborhood. Lopez was particularly taken by the women in these situations, they commanded a different kind of respect than men, from men. With a nuanced understanding of community as it relates to performance and presence, Lopez acknowledges that these figures (gangstresses and good wives alike), pass on a different kind of generational wealth, introducing legacy as the coveted heirloom. Legacy ultimately represents what one’s family has worked for, the matrix of the hustle, and thus it can take many forms, from furs, Nike’s and Jordan’s, to reverence – period.

LUAR has been worn and supported by the likes of Dua Lipa, Shawn Mendes, Bella Hadid, Christina Aguilera, Future, Kylie Jenner, Lourdes Leon, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Solange Knowles, Tyga, Theophilus London, and more. In 2018, Raul was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund.