Designer Julian Louie doesn’t really think in terms of seasons, per se, but as a constant process of refining. “The foundations are there, it’s just a matter of chipping away at it,” he says of his brand, Aubero. He likens it to the way Michelangelo would take a chisel to a block of marble to slowly, bit by bit, reveal the sculpture trapped within (he does not, however, mean to compare himself to one of art’s great masters).
Louie was a runner-up for last year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and a semi-finalist for the 2024 LVMH Prize. He is known for his poetic, plaintive pieces, often decorated with upcycled fabrics and rendered in woozy surf rat silhouettes inspired by his native Northern California. Those hallmarks remain this season, though he’s finessed some of the surface details. Where once there were patches of desultory folds and undulations of fabric woven into the front of a boxy suit jacket or car coat, now they are gently ordering themselves toward a more grid-like appearance of scraps of lace and other ornamental textiles.
While those showstoppers are popular with store buyers and shoppers, they’re also labor-intensive and limited by available materials. So he’s shrewdly broadening his scope, as with a suit—the jacket with a high stance and four buttons—made from rugged, washed canvas that he imagines could be worn while gardening. His signature fluid shirting now comes in washed taffeta for a weather-worn glamour, while another is made from liquid-y silk traditionally used as jacket lining. The decorative motif of the season comes from an abstract painting his grandfather made early in his art career, and which Louie has in his own house. It has a slight hieroglyphic quality and comes as a beaded motif on a shirt or is abstracted and added to the hem of another button-up. “I have a real love of ornamentation, and finding ways to do it in menswear is an interesting challenge,” he said.
There are wispy sheer tank tops; a grunge-y plaid shirt that looks of the thrift store variety but is actually made from silk shantung with small irregularities and a surprisingly crunchy, dry texture; hearty pants with stripes made from bias-cut strips of fabric applied to the front and then garment-washed for a rough, undone quality; and his signature long shorts with their extended inseam and rise. Roomy totes and feathery scarves were welcome additions on the accessories front.
This feels like a very deliberate step forward in building out categories for the Aubero world, in moving it from something arty and dreamy to something with a firmer foundation. It’s a delicate dance, but Louie has been able to add commercial elements without forsaking what makes the brand special in the first place. He picked up a jacket with fragments of textiles he used a couple of seasons ago, now embedded into its exterior. “There’s a kind of circularity, too, which is important to me,” he said. “It’s not about discarding season after season. It’s really like building and building: the collections geared to each other. In a way … that’s how you build a wardrobe, right?”
