J. Mendel brought its uptown glamour downtown and into the clouds on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center yesterday. It was the first collection Vogue Runway has reviewed from the label since 2022 and was the debut of resident creative director Jonathan Cohen. The grandeur of the location would be difficult for any brand to try to meet; in this case it emphasized the narrow remit of a company that seems to be caught in amber.
Founded in 1870 in St. Petersburg as a house of furs, the brand operated in Paris until 1981 when Gilles Mendel established a branch in New York City. (The designer has not been associated with the brand since 2018.) As fur declined in popularity, Mendel adapted, officially introducing ready-to-wear in 2002. This was the era of socialites—Tinsley, Byrdie, Muffie–and of the Frick Young Fellows Ball, to which J. Mendel’s feathered and embroidered dresses and tippets added a touch of romance. Natalie Portman wore a palest pink hand-pleated silk chiffon gown from the label on the January 2011 cover of Vogue. “I just always remember that dress being so beautiful and I loved how easy it looked,” said Cohen, whose own take on pretty in pink (look 15) was inspired by Britney Spears, and was thus cut ultra-short and skin-baring.
Cohen’s remit is to work backwards from evening into day(ish) wear. The opening look, slim trousers with a flowy top of bias-cut chiffon strips in shades of red (inspired by the couture-like inner finishing of garments in the atelier), would work for a dressy lunch or cocktail. Fur-paneled separates felt heavy; more viable were flowy pieces in printed pleated chiffon. One of the pieces the designer was most excited about was a leather jacket with pretty puckered pockets. It was created using a fur machine, which meant that the seams were fused, eliminating seam allowances and making the jacket as weightless as possible.
This transposition of furrier’s artisanship to other materials is an exciting, forward-looking idea, but the collection was burdened by the too-tight fit of some of the looks and more broadly by a sense of the past. Cohen’s access to a skilled atelier is unique. To make the J. Mendel more relevant ground the flightier “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” aspects of the brand identity in real life, he might direct that artisanship to capture some of the raw concrete energy of NYC.
