5:31 Jerome Spring 2016

Jerome LaMaar, creative director 5:31 Jerome, has not abandoned his urban roots. And perhaps, that is a good thing. With his the spring 2016 collection of his eponymous brand, LaMaar has attempted to create the new urban glam fashionista—and by urban I am referencing a downtown Brooklyn fashionista, maybe, even an uptown Harlem style maven.

Now, LaMaar’s new urban fashionista has a sense of street style in-your-face glamour married with a patina of outré high fashion. She’s confident, eye catching and not afraid to be the first to don garments that are outside of the fashion cultural norm.

LaMaar has made a good attempt for spring 2016 to create appropriate clothes for this new urban consumer. Though at times, he overextended his reach with an over abundance of embellishments and sequins.

Themed “Earth. Abundance. Maximalism,” LaMaar was most successful with his flora reference that included foliage-themed restrained volume jackets and light coats. LaMaar’s abundance and maximalism themes were not as well thought out and bordered on too many ideas and too many fabrications and embellishments. Instead of abundance, some garments referenced overkill. Less should have been more with this motif.

Still, LaMaar is evolving his design aesthetic beyond some of the design silhouettes he learned well while at Baby Phat. And his knit and silk dresses with rivets were sexy and will have a larger market appeal.

As one of the few African American designers that show regularly during NYFW, LaMaar should be celebrated for his evolving aesthetic and his resilience in market that sometimes swallows up the best. Keep up the good work!!

—William S. Gooch