Off-White Resort 2024 Collection

Behind the scenes, both Off-White and its parent group New Guards have been recently subject to a restructuring of their respective executive mastheads. Front of house, meanwhile, the brand that first propelled NGG to such powerhouse status continues to develop under the creative guidance of Ibrahim Kamara. Last season, Kamara took us to the moon (not in a crypto way) via Sierra Leone. In this resort collection, he continued to excavate the cultural spaces created by the shifting 21st century forces of globalization, the digital diaspora, and the gravity of personal identity.

The collection was entitled “Homecoming.” Kamara said: “It’s about going back to Off-White fundamentals. And also I wanted to do a collection that has an American sensibility… As an indigenous African, I explored my take on an American perspective, and how we can link that to the first people of America.” Once you get to the moon and look down, astronauts have recounted, you realize we all come from the same place. Kamara said he was looking to express an “indigenous global language.”

That intention parsed into a collection that was full of signifiers specific both to Off-White and broader cultural brands. Kamara played both against each other via cowboy tropes in “Western” tailoring with broken “Buffalo” pinstripe whose silhouettes also hinted at a process of Ray Petri-ation via the designer’s Londoner sensibility. Vests in rib-jersey and lace were combined and hybridized into twisted, draped womenswear pieces. We veered into Stevie Nicks meets Don Henley territory in finely draped lace-edged yellow leather dresses. Tattoo reliefs were inked across knits and handkerchiefs, a design Kamara said would become a regular house motif. Here these ran across both men’s and women’s, as did a scanning print meant to signify the very Off-White in-between of global travel. Vitamins, gaming devices, a baseball, and an Off-White brand document were amongst the items revealed in it.

The number 23 was engineered into pinstripe and print and sporty grosgrain stripes were integrated into tailoring. One menswear look, a jacket and shorts, was tailored from basketball leather while a paisley edged, Gabicci-esque knit button-up featured that key number on its back. Kamara said the brand’s recent collaboration with the Chicago Bulls had fired his identity here (Michael Jordan’s number was 23). Layered oversized denim and gabardine field jackets featured a newly expressed version of the company’s four-arrow logo, and a side-zipped knit sweater featured a Manhattan skyline intarsia fronted by a hot air balloon. “We’re back on earth,” said Kamara, “exploring beautiful clothes that you want to wear.”