NYFWM: Willy Chavarria Fall/Winter 2017

“As soon as I could pick up a pencil, I was sketching and drawing clothes,” Willy Chavarria told us. “I was always fascinated by how my parents dressed in the late ’60s. My father is Mexican-American and there was this cool Chicano style movement in California—very skinny jeans, Converse, sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off, and Ray Bans.” That’s what sparked Chavarria’s interest in design, leading to the development of his own namesake menswear line of high street wear.

Chavarria’s silhouette is highly influenced by street style of the past—think pre-’90s—and Chicano and Cholo culture. Think baggy pants and tops and belted high-waists bomber jackets, to name a few. “The core design is based on the way Cholos in the ’90s would take athletic teen clothing, like the Oakland Raiders or Dallas Cowboys, and interpret that into high fashion,” he said of his newest range. “It’s titled “Harder,” because it represents a harder time that we’re moving into, and it’s a reminder that we need to fight harder, be harder, and love harder.”

Chavarria is one of nine P3 designers in our “Up Next” competition with Samsung and the CFDA. As for how the designer used Samsung tools in his collection? “We did a casting call through social media with photos we took with the Samsung camera. We did a model call on our Instagram and we did live interviews with the 360 camera, where they kind of styled themselves. We were getting to know the person. The casting itself was based on the personal swag and the confidence they had. We used the 360 camera to conduct these interviews where we asked people questions and we shot them. We’re also using 360 to shoot backstage at the presentation, so at the end we want to release a video of the casting process, the interviews, and the show.”

The winner gets the cover of our February 10 NYFW issue—if you like what you see, you can vote for the label HERE.