Kent Stetson’s StyleWeek Runway Show is a Statement on the Status Handbag
The runway show featured Ballet RI dancers dressed in rainbow colors emblazoned with emojis, each carrying a handbag that made a different statement on society.
Models from Kent Stetson’s StyleWeek “Status Bag” runway show. Photo provided by Kent Stetson.
Kent Stetson’s StyleWeek runway show was more of a societal statement than a fashion show. The renowned local handbag designer, known for his signature clutches featuring creative digital prints on coated canvas, imagined a performance centered on the coveted status handbag, unattainable by many, but respected by most. The runway show featured Ballet RI dancers dressed in rainbow colors with their faces completely blanked out and wearing garments with emojis on the front to express their emotions. Each dancer carried a Kent creation that reflected on the connotations of carrying status handbags like Chanel, the Birkin bag and others, as well as bags that served as symbols of consumer shopping habits, economic status, drug addiction and Big Pharma. Assistant Creative Director Zoe Grinfield also contributed to the vision. In this interview, Kent Stetson unpacks his runway show to tell us more about the meaning behind each look. kentstetson.com; styleweeknortheast.com
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Jamie: You said that this show made you feel a bit uncomfortable in a way, because you were expressing your view of fashion and handbags for women, and you’re a man. So how did that make you feel?
Kent: I think it’s troubling territory whenever a man tells a woman what to wear. I didn’t want to pull the plug and just walk away from this show. First of all, a woman should never need for a man to tell her what she can and can’t wear, or should or shouldn’t wear. It should be something that she chooses on her own and she should be free to have fun making those choices. And whether you’re a connoisseur or collector of exceptional pieces, or you have an incredible knowledge about a particular brand, and you’re passionate about that, you don’t need to explain that to someone unless you choose to. Whatever reason someone has for carrying a high-end, heritage label piece, it’s not anyone else’s business but their own. But at the same time, we can have some interesting conversations about that. What this show really was, was a prompt to have some conversations about this. I have done this for a long time, and Rhode Island Monthly has been covering me for many years, and StyleWeek has given me a platform for well over a decade. This is a locally grown brand, but I do popups, craft shows, street festivals and in-store appearances, and I’ll see people carrying a five-figure handbag, who will sneer at me. I had someone at a store say to me, “I would buy one of your bags, but I only wear Chanel.” I thought, well, what am I supposed to say? What are you trying to say? What is it about your self image that aspires to spend that kind of money on something? There are lots of different answers to that; some of them are great, some of them are not.
StyleWeek photos by Auder Aldana.
Healing through shopping.
How did you stage the show?
This show had three movements. The first movement was pieces that make fun of the five-figure bags. There are pieces in the next chunk that are hybrid, combining different brands in distorted, peculiar ways. There are references to Big Pharma and Big Fashion. The third section were pieces that intended to talk about what someone might actually be doing, so their actual status. Models have the actual faces blanked out, so you don’t see their expressions; you don’t see their gender. Their garments are loose and baggy. You can’t, in some cases, tell if it’s a man or woman.
Hardware and marketing.
I also noticed the rainbow motif.
Exactly, we’re in the middle of Pride, so this was a reference to me being a queer designer. My splash print, the iconic Kent Stetson bag, is my Pride flag. It has a different shape to it, and it doesn’t say outright that this is a LGBTQ-owned business, but that’s what that is. We had those three different sections to the show. The models had the emojis printed on the big sweater dresses that they were wearing because people express their emotions so frequently through these emojis and where the faces aren’t visible, I felt as though we use the emojis to convey emotions. Another thing that’s happening is the runway is somewhat of an ode to the male gaze. What these dancers were doing was actually looking back, and bouncing that back to the audience in a way that’s meant to be confrontational and challenging.
The way they were dance walking…
They were bouncing between this proud, flamboyant stride and this guard dog’s marching. The walk was used to demonstrate this surveillance mechanism that’s frightening. I was trying to think about beauty and luxury being more frightening than aspirational. And the standards to which women are held for both status of being worthy; there’s that amazing monologue from America Ferrera in the Barbie movie, and this is talking about how unfair these standards are. And how scary it is to not feel like you fit in, to not feel like you can afford something, to feel like you look in the mirror and you’re fearful that you’re ugly or hideous.
And all the filters of today that make things look distorted, and different from what they are in reality. It’s really hard.
I guess I was trying to understand what it must actually feel like to be a woman, and how those standards are unfair. I was trying to flip them inside out though. A person’s aspirations are mental health and financial security and those are things that aren’t logos that you see on bags. But there were pieces I made, like the Dollar Tree bag was a very luxe gold, shiny bag, but instead of a designer logo, it has a Dollar Tree logo. And that person is someone who is like “I’m living within my means and this is what I can afford, and my financial independence is my Gucci bag.” Those are things that are commendable. That people have to make sacrifices to not spend their money frivolously. The runway has not ever really been a place to celebrate that.
And the statement with the Amazon model holding a brown-paper-bag wrapped McDonald’s Happy Meal. Is that because Amazon is ubiquitous and everyone shops on Amazon without thinking about the repercussions?
It was the Happy Meal box in the colors of an Amazon Prime cardboard box with the Amazon smile flipped upside down. I was thinking about fulfilling our needs emotionally, spiritually and holistically with purchasing things to solve our problems. And how that is a cycle that sometimes yields disappointment, and also the people who are on the other end of that, who are packing, shipping and delivering, I was thinking about them. I was sort of imagining the uniform for an Amazon driver, and re-imagining it as unhappy.
Over a billion served.
There are so many statements. This was like a dissertation in a fashion show, because it has so many different facets of society and what people are going through.
There was a lot going on in a short amount of time. It was a bit of a casserole, but I realized this was an opportunity to present a manifesto and a dissertation on what it’s like, and the things that I hear, working in this industry.
Big clutch energy.
How did you do your research? How were you able to know?
At the end of the day, my job is customer service, which is really humbling. I am very affirmed. I’m very happy. I’m very lucky to have so much support, but I’ve heard it all. People will say to my face things that are incredibly thoughtless about my passions and what I’ve crafted and why it’s not good enough for them.
You mean when you are at shows in New York and things like that?
Yes, if I’m selling at a table on the street or in Grand Central Terminal.
They clearly don’t know who Kent Stetson is yet [laughs].
At the same time, this show is also a victory lap. I get to do a piece that has some rage in it, because I have arrived at a point where I can do whatever I want with that sort of thing. Business is really good. I had that moment where I broke through. It’s actually a gratitude piece. It’s dedicated to all of us who are makers just trying to make our way and running the gauntlet. And getting through. It wouldn’t have happened without everyone who is the audience believing in me and making room for me in their closets. I have customers who can afford whatever they want, and I have customers who have to save for a very long time to afford one of my pieces. In both cases, I’m incredibly grateful for that space these women have given me in their lives. You all become ambassadors of my work every time you carry one of my pieces.
Believe me, I get way more comments on your bags than any piece of designer “hardware and marketing” that I own.
I wanted the effect to be kind of like what scrolls through on your social media feed, where it’s moving kind of quickly and some of it’s going to land, and some of it won’t. I heard Bethany Frankel talk about this humiliating experience of shopping in a Chanel store. And there’s another video where she talks about her handbag collection, and she’s like, “at the end of the day, most of these bags are just hardware and marketing.” And so I turned that into a piece based on that – the “Change the Chanel” bag. So I reference what I see on social media.
Are you actually going to sell some of these pieces and create them?
Many of the pieces, the branding and logos on them can be removed, so they can be sold as the base bags. The letters come off the “Change the Chanel” bag. The poop emoji comes off that red bag, so I don’t want to be wasteful with these pieces.
I think people would want to own them as they are.
Thank you for saying that. Out of context, I think it might be even more problematic than on the safe space of the runway. The effect that these pieces would have on the general public, walking around and carrying them, might be cumbersome for the person using it that would have to respond to it.
Cruella has skin in the game.
I am sure many people would welcome that though. It’s literally an artistic statement on life and society.
Kelsey came up to me and the one bag that has all the brand markings that are spelled together in a vulgar, middle-finger expression, she said this should be a diaper bag. And we are actually working with one of our manufacturing partners to do a small run of them as diaper bags.
StyleWeek photos by Auder Aldana.
See that’s genius. It’s so different from anything that’s out there. For that edgy mom, it’s perfect. It’s always good to expose new audiences, because there are still a lot of people out there who don’t know Kent Stetson.
It’s a huge frontier which makes me really excited to think that I just scratched the surface of the success that’s coming. I had a major breakthrough this year.
With PBS? Obviously this fashion show exists here in Rhode Island, but when you put it on the internet, it’s going to get national, viral attention.
I am working on that now to make sure I explain each piece in a way so that people who are interested in fashion, who are craving something different and new, when they see it, they know it has some intention and thoughtfulness behind it. That I’m not being completely irreverent and careless about it.
Has the runway show taken off virally yet? I saw it got thousands of views on your Instagram reels.
There were videographers shooting the show from all different angles while it was happening on the runway. They are in the process of editing that so we don’t have the final footage yet, but Rosanna was very thoughtful in making sure their team was there on the runway. StyleWeek is very much a viewer-forward event, where they are making sure the people in the seats are networking, and are being catered to. They are the fun of the event. The runway shows are part of the experience that’s there for the audience, the people who want to network. If a city was a Chanel logo, let’s say it’s Providence. This is a designer city. People should say the name Providence and think, they have cool, dynamic things going on there; this is the place to be. That’s really what this show is about. Adding to the idea that Providence is the aspiration of where you want to be.
It is the art city. Obviously, Manhattan is too, but we have so many wonderful arts organizations. We have RISD, the Avenue Concept, public art, fashion with StyleWeek. It really should shine on a brighter spotlight.
We punch way above our weight class. When people come to Providence they’re like Providence is a cool town.
I just feel like the city has never gotten the shine it deserves. Like Portland, Maine, got that. And Providence is just as cool, if not cooler.
But when people come, they are genuinely impressed. We can keep that secret to ourselves. Providence is the Chanel bag of cities, as far as I’m concerned.
I think it’s the Kent Stetson of cities. It’s ironic to me that I carry a designer Gucci bag sometimes, but I get way more compliments and am noticed way more when I’m carrying one of your bags. When I went to the Avenue Concept event, everyone was asking me. Not everyone is familiar with you, which is surprising. And they are like, ‘where did you get that?,’ and they take your name down. That happens every time I wear one of your bags. Whereas when I have a designer bag, I fade into the background.
I want people to know when they are supporting a maker, creative startup, independent, that what they are doing is good and appreciated, and you are worthy of a six-figure Hermes, but our decision to also support someone who is working for their living and who started something is commendable and should be celebrated and revered more than store-bought goods. I hope that comes through when people unpack the experience of being at the show.
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