NYC brand Area have brought their new ready to wear collection, Ready-To-Wear-01, to life with the help of vogue royalty. The collection and campaign were released to the company’s renovated site last week and fit to the current climate of Covid with the feature of a few crystal-adorned masks.
The face of the campaign is Leiomy Maldonado, Afro-Puerto Rican activist, choreographer and vogue dancer titled the ‘Wonder Woman Of Vogue’. The legendary dancer is known for her world class vogue status in the dance world, her choreography and her appearances on Pose and dance competition web series Legendary. In a series of videos and photos, Leiomy sports the collection’s dazzling outfits and accessories with duckwalks and poses, flaunting the label’s party-ready function to ‘Funny Munny’ by Byrell The Great.
Area shares its name with the famous manhattan nightclub from the 80s, and shares its energy too, as founders Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Pansczczyk took inspiration from the club’s renowned fashion, art and performance when they started the brand in 2014. There’s no better way to show this inspiration than with an esteemed member of the Ballroom scene – a subculture born and raised in the city and known for its fashionable scenes.
And Leiomy’s dancing shows off the collection better than any model could – vogue being a dramatised form of the way models pose, and for such a lively, glittering collection nothing sells the crystal embellishments like movement. Against the simple grey background, the monochrome pieces come to life with retro grain and shimmer.
This move is another contribution to vogue’s new recognition, as Area is one of many fashion houses using big Ballroom scene names in campaigns and launches in recent years. It makes perfect sense that this idea is making its way across the fashion world, as the western youth attempts to ditch heteronormativity and gender boundaries, and such influential scenes as the vogue one are finally getting the acknowledgment they deserve.
Draped Baguette Crystal Cami
Crystal Baguette Cropped Blazer
Campaigns like this could be the future for such iconic communities as the one Leiomy embodies.
See the full campaign and collection on Area’s newly refurbished site
Words by Daisy Grace Greetham
