Patrik Ervell 90s West Coast Slacker
For Spring 2018, Patrik Ervell reflected on his youth and West Coast slackerdom in a collection that evoked his time growing up in San Francisco in the 1990s. “It’s kind of nostalgic for me.” “I was just thinking about San Francisco in the ’90s, where I grew up. And I think about it as the birthplace of the Internet and this new age-y thing, but also with an echo of ’60s counterculture and all these things that were crashing together at that time.” This resulted in a range of cropped jackets with colorblocking details, and ultralight short-sleeve camp shirts worn with baggy, “skater shorts” or rolled up trousers that highlighted chunky soled trainers.
His signature “air jacket,” a sort of Patagonia-meets-Windrunner pullover blouson presented in various poppy color combinations and bore the sheen of shiny, silicon coating. While paneled nylon jackets and nylon shirts, “polyurethane leather” shorts—one pleated and mid-thigh, one flat-fronted and knee-length were paired with wet looking translucent nylon shirts. T-shirts and sweatshirts with nylon details were also prevalent in the collection and hearkened back to the glory years when Michael Jordan ruled the sports world. “It’s a very nostalgic collection,” he admitted, adding that nylon was the material of his childhood sleeping bags, family tents and outdoor equipment.
A few jacket color combos were reminiscent of popular teen movies of the decade like Scream and Clueless, like a purple, turquoise and grey jacket which shares the same colors of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and a jacket featuring primary colors may be an unintentional nod to Polo’s ‘Snow Beach’ anorak that was featured in Ralph Lauren’s collection in 1992 and made popular by rapper Raekwon in his “Can It All Be So Simple?” video. The references in Ervell’s show were numerous.
See All the Looks from the Collection
