While big names like Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors dominated New York Fashion Week headlines, it was Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic-born LeBlancStudios that left showgoers buzzing with its intellectual storytelling and community-driven ethos.
Established in 2014 by design duo Angelo Beato and Yamil Arbaje, the Caribbean brand is known for turning political and social narratives into fashion statements.
For their SS26 collection, “Museum of Common Oddities,” the designers looked to “exiled thinkers, forgotten ones, tycoons, and Caribbean and Latin American militants” for inspiration, according to a company release. Hosted at community center The Bench, guests were invited to walk around and experience the lineup of structured wool blazers with leather collars, misplaced pockets, lightweight cotton blazers, and asymmetrical shirts with slashes.
“With all the collections, we approach it as if they were like a film or a novel because we want to build characters,” Arbaje told Retail Brew. “This time, the narrative is inspired by our lives between New York and the Dominican Republic, but also the history of exile, or exiled thinkers in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s from the Dominican Republic or Latin America, because it’s a story that we felt [was] relevant with what’s happening today.”
He added that the designers created the “fictional museum” as a sort of institution where “all of these stories could come together.”
“The word museum…it’s such a social signifier, and it’s like, ‘Oh, it increased your cultural capital’ and we wanted to be ironic around that, and also look at the collection from a cultural perspective rather than traditional luxury,” Arbaje said.
Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know
Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.
The brand also played with traditional menswear codes making them more “fragile, more fluid,” Beato said, citing the military shirts in the collection that “have details that they become softer and feminine.”
This season’s lineup is a prime example of why the emerging designers have been able to develop a loyal customer base not just in the Dominican Republic, but also in New York. In fact, the duo, who split their time between Santo Domingo and New York, say that most of their customers are now from the US, with most between the ages of 40 and 45.
Still, the retailer’s biggest challenge is not necessarily appealing to youth, but rather costs—a perpetual issue for many small independent businesses.
“One of the biggest challenges, because we’re doing shows, is the cash flow, to keep a balance between operational expenses, but also show expenses, which are really huge for a small brand,” Arbaje said. “That literally affects everything, because without that, you don’t have the ability to produce as much or to go as fast as you want.”
Regardless, Arbaje said he has faith in his and Beato’s ability to overcome this hurdle as they rework their strategy to “grow faster” and complete more sales in the US. They even plan on expanding to other international markets, including Paris and Japan, as their website has seen considerable DTC traction after the NYFW show.
“As soon as we have it, [our product] sells really quick, which is really great,” Arbaje said. “We just need to have more money.”