Andrew Curwen dresses a model, photographed by Andy Martinez.
SUNDAY 9 PM JULY 27, 2025 NYC
As the sun set on Sunday night, a line of fashion fans and editors snaked through the streets of Bushwick for the debut collection of Andrew Curwen. It was a first for the designer’s eponymous brand, but Curwen isn’t new to the game. A decade in the industry has earned him right hand status for New York provocateurs Jane Wade and Elena Velez, who each taught Andrew a thing or two about deconstruction. Creative directed by Mo Johnson and cast by Fish Fiorucci, the 11-look collection featured sharp corsetry, fluffy gauze bustles, and motifs inspired by Victorian archetypes. After the show (dramatically titled, “Your Last Breath Belongs To Me”), we stepped onto the balcony with Curwen and Johnson for a little fresh air.
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MO JOHNSON: We could go on the balcony.
MEKALA RAJAGOPAL: So beautiful out here. How are you feeling?
ANDREW CURWEN: Shaking. We’d watched the rehearsals, but during the actual bow, it got very real in a way that I haven’t processed yet.
JOHNSON: His design team didn’t sleep for three days leading up to this. It was really a community effort of the seeds that Andrew has planted for the decade that he’s been in New York working at different brands. That’s why I think it was so seamless and beautiful for a debut.
CURWEN: Yeah, it feels like a culmination of my time here. I’ve known the producer since I was 10. I didn’t hear from him for five years, and a month ago, he randomly hit me up like, “Do you want to meet me at this club?”
RAJAGOPAL: What club?
CURWEN: It’s the one with the rusty walls off the Morgan stop that’s trying to be Basement-adjacent. We met there and he was telling me about his theater lighting work, and he was like, “I can do a lot if you need more help.” I was like, “Well, fuck yeah,”
RAJAGOPAL: It brought out the theatrical vibe.
CURWEN: It was more theatrical. Some of these things manifest in really beautiful ways. My meetings with him are usually at midnight or 2:00 AM. I’ll be in the studio and he’ll just drop by.
RAJAGOPAL: You’ve been here for a decade?
CURWEN: Actually, a little over. I moved here in 2013. I was born upstate, but I moved around a lot because my dad’s military.
RAJAGOPAL: How were the past 24 hours?
CURWEN: We had our final fittings. We stayed up, but not in a hectic way. I wasn’t pulling all-nighters with panic, but it was more seeing how far we could take it. It was crazy, but I only had one tiny meltdown throughout the whole thing.
RAJAGOPAL: I know. Everyone seems so together. I’ve actually never seen a backstage like this.
CURWEN: And yesterday we literally lost what was our closing look.
RAJAGOPAL: Can you describe it?
CURWEN: It was this gown that had 75 yards worth of silk organza, cut into very tightly stacked ruffles that mimic the opening gown, but floor length. Just huge, with a beautiful bounce. And with the circles overlapping, it gave the energy of infinite growth. It was in this 10% French gray tone that can be a little flat, so we had someone dye the bottom to give it the feeling of someone who walked through rubble a little bit. Give it some life.
RAJAGOPAL: When you walk through New York with long jeans.
JOHNSON: Yeah, she has a story.
CURWEN: Otherwise, it’s just pretty. Then when I saw the pictures, it was very intense. The hem was black. And she was like, “It’s still wet,” so I thought we could rinse it out and minimize the damage, but it turned bright yellow with splotches of green.
RAJAGOPAL: Oh my god.
CURWEN: It completely curve-balled and we couldn’t save it.
RAJAGOPAL: But it felt complete without that last look.
CURWEN: And Mo has been able to very seamlessly guide this entire process.
RAJAGOPAL: My favorite thing was the fluffy bounciness that you just mentioned.
CURWEN: Oh, yeah. That’s shredded wool gauze and horse hair. Literally just sewn in tracks of extensions. It has a really resilient movement to it. It’s a little wiry and can read as feathery.
JOHNSON: Yeah, there’s so much intricate layering. Everything is lined with tags in it, which is insane for a debut. I’ve never seen that in all the shows I’ve walked and attended in 15 years. I can’t believe we did it.
RAJAGOPAL: Which one was the most challenging to get together?
CURWEN: I think the sneaky hard one was the leather dress with the neck brace and the flat boots. It’s made from a single piece of leather with darts cut out, but the whole thing can lay flat. I made it to specific measurements, so finding someone who could fill that out in very thick leather proved to be the most challenging.
RAJAGOPAL: It’s stiff.
CURWEN: Exactly. You have to get in and out of it.
RAJAGOPAL: What’s the message of this collection?
CURWEN: I think we both gravitate towards visceral identities.
RAJAGOPAL: What do you mean by that?
CURWEN: A projection of who you see yourself to be very deeply rather than manufactured through external pressures.
JOHNSON: Yeah, I feel like each of the models is a part of you. The hoodie is literally what Andrew would wear to the studio, but amplified. We didn’t just do corsetry, which is what Andrew is known for, but there were so many other beautiful things. There’s leather spats on the shoes that have his family crest lazered into them. There’s so much love.
RAJAGOPAL: The show notes were a poem.
CURWEN: I think that was the easiest way for me to synthesize it. I can get very halted by a blank page. Endless potential, but also endless potential for failure.
RAJAGOPAL: It’s like the SpongeBob “The.”
CURWEN: [Laughs] Exactly, so a sonnet is great. 14 lines, iambic pentameter. It’s a search for safety through embracing identity. It sounds very vague, but I did feel very safe around the archetypes in the collection. We built a fantasy for ourselves to escape into when reality is tough.
RAJAGOPAL: You mentioned one of the archetypes was pop star.
CURWEN: Yeah.
JOHNSON: Tirtha has that like, Bob Mackie Cher—
CURWEN: Mixed with Tina Turner from the Thunderdome. And she embodied. She gets her makeup on and something pulls tight around the waist, and stands up straight and is locked in.
JOHNSON: It’s amazing because we know all our models so intimately.
RAJAGOPAL: Are there any other archetypes you can think of?
CURWEN: The show opened with the Raven, which was an on-the-nose, but intricate example of that romanticism of darkness that we all do a little bit. There’s one look we called a truffula top.
RAJAGOPAL: Like a truffula tree?
JOHNSON: [Laughs] Yeah. We have nicknames for some of them. I think the names are going to evolve now.
RAJAGOPAL: How does it feel to break away from working for Jane Wade and Elena Velez? Is it different?
CURWEN: There’s somewhat less panic. In the past, I panicked about letting people down. They’re women that I very much respect. Jane has done a lot for me and she is one of the kindest and hardest working people I’ve ever met. And when working with her, I would be worried, but now I’m the one who’s calling my shots. I was surprised by how calm it felt. I thought it would be a lot scarier.
JOHNSON: I wasn’t with Andrew at Elena, but I think Jane is one of the most amazing women in fashion right now. Calm, grounded, honest, very high expectations, hard-working. She trained us and we had fear of letting her down because we’re her proud children. But we still work out of the same studio as Jane. It didn’t feel like a departure.
CURWEN: It’s moving away from working for her, and opening the door for working with or working alongside.
RAJAGOPAL: What do you think New York fashion needs right now?
CURWEN: I believe the community of New York City designers that create on a similar level can often feel very isolated. We can trade notes. We can be like, “Don’t use this vendor.” There’s something so strong in that.
JOHNSON: And we had so many amazing designers here to see the show, so it’s not us against them or anyone.
CURWEN: Yeah, that’s true.
JOHNSON: New York, especially Brooklyn designers are really all in this together.
RAJAGOPAL: It’s the best part of fashion week, and I love how off-calendar we are right now.
JOHNSON: Isn’t that so nice?
RAJAGOPAL: It’s like a midsummer microdose of fashion.
JOHNSON: It really felt so happy and joyful, and it came just at the right time.
CURWEN: I remember before living in New York City, glimpsing into the lives of the people in fashion being like, “They have the connections. They have the Rolodex. Where do I find that?” And it’s not something that you ever notice that you achieved. But this was one of those rare moments, when I was looking down the email list like, “Oh my god, we do know him.” That is very motivating. It warms my heart in a city that’s not always easy. It’s finding these reminding yourself that there’s still stars in the sky, even if you can’t see them all the time.
RAJAGOPAL: That’s so cute. Where are you guys going after this?
JOHNSON: Our afterparty.
CURWEN: Yeah, we’re going to Jbird. It’s going to be very cute.
JOHNSON: Alicia, who also works at Jane Wade and is our dear friend, is DJing. Her boyfriend did the sonics today.
RAJAGOPAL: The thumps.
CURWEN: Yeah, he completely made that.
JOHNSON: The whole family is there. We’re so gross like that.
