Anyone can find the dirt in someone,
Be the one who finds the gold.

The proverb could not be more true in my affirmed infatuation with the color gold. From accessorizing with it to wearing it to changing the tonality of my hair to match it, from nibbling away on it to visiting a place of peace decked in gold, my love story with the hue has only just recently bejeweled itself, but will be long lasting relationship.

Which brought me to designer Rocky Gathercole from the Philippines and with a cult following in Saudi Arabia. His collection for Arts Hearts Fashion was dipped in a poignant theme of gold, literally. Solid, restructured, stunning and jaw-dropping in everywhere, it made all the viewers hyperventilate in pixie dust.

Art Hearts Fashion is a platform for designers and artists to showcase their collections in a contemporary setup, held nationwide but most prominently in cosmopolitan capitals of New York, Miami and Los Angeles. The New York edition was held in the Angel Orensanz Center, a redone church, which made for a macabre and intriguing setting for a full on gold show, transposed again a seductive indigo light.

With a comrade from the fashion world who sported sunglasses indoors and out, we were set to view Gathercole’s collection.

Gathercole brought his moving art, psychedelic and freshly creative collection to the runway to grace the closing at New York Fashion Week.

Avant-garde is too mild a term to classify this designer. From gold studded everything – accents on dresses, full on bodysuits, bodices and underwear armor, the list endless lushness of creativity was a sight for mundane fashion bored eyes.

My favorite womenswear pieces were the knee length flair and pleated frocks if you may – each with heavy metal detailing as ribbons or shards or florets with gold pearls at the bustier, and gold accenting on lace and georgette skirts. Frolicking with the bounce of the music and the models, these were not your childhood frocks, but a bouncy treat for playful eyes.

There were bodysuits aplenty too, with peekaboo fitness model skins and shimmering fairy-style details all over, from bells to frills to frays to full on tassels, all of which have been trending over the past years. While likely not a nightlife or mainstream phenomenon, they were fitting to the show and the whimsical gold presentation overall.

Many viewers were caught gaping at the fairly revealing textures and slits on the ethereal damsels, clearly an apt case of viewing pleasure blended with immaculate style.

Being a menswear stylist, I was most interested at the inclusion of gold in the menswear collection, which was limited to the exploding world of mens harnesses, shoulder accents and above all, underwear. With entire seasons dedicated to swimwear and underwear, Gathercole took it a step further by accenting men’s crotches with protective gold armor, and in some cases, full on skulls for a suggestive interlude.

The crowns worked on some men as modern Adonis renditions, while the chained armors worked on others as equally valiant metaphors of masculinity. Gloved armor and Herculean wings on one particular model made him seem like an alternate species, albeit an alluring one.

Many of the audience members gasped at the display of abdominals and pectorals on the hunks walking down the runway, clearly not oblivious to their attention, each competing as the next smolder holder.

My last category of observation was that of armor: from full on dragon headpieces, svelte cages, to lions on bustiers and my all time favorite – the serpent head. With a growing passion for snakes, I relished this the most.

These were paired with polka speckled leggings or bejeweled trousers, working magic on the runway in a juxtaposition of solid and liquid gold.

 

The show ended with a presentation of solid gold on the stage with a spectacle of metal corsets, fleshy muscles and seductive bedroom stares from the gorgeous spectacle of models. Definitely worth a standing ovations as the designs sauntered down in sequence.

We got our clicks with our favorite models, sporting Maleficent headpieces and slithering snakes for body pieces.

And the night ended at the afterparty, glowing and drenched in pink neon light.

Not before our Jeremy Scott X Lexus collaboration cameo, though. Good marketing, this was.

Reaffirming my tribute to all things gold, I was thrilled with Gathercole’s testament to my favorite color. Be a gold digger, or perhaps a goal digger, but be a digger, I thought.

Go gold.