TARPLEY FW24 Imagines the Characters Behind the Internet's Anonymous Usernames

Trading Tennessee farmlands for the New York Men’s Day stage, Nashville native Brooks Jones has a sprawling fashion manifesto. “Something that’s really important to me as a designer is to avoid having one niche,” the TARPLEY designer, who attended Chicago’s Columbia College, previously told Hypebeast. His Spring 2024 line, now available for pre-order, is anything but homogenous, with silhouettes crafted after Southern farmers, Bushwick art kids, Berghain clubgoers and everyone in between. But for Fall 2024, the fashioner looks to expand his stylistic archetypes even further, with a range of pieces galvanized by the Internet’s anonymous characters.

“The past year has been a rollercoaster, but there have been a few anon accounts on social media who have always kept my spirits high when working on my clothes that I felt the call to almost create clothing for them in a way,” Jones said of the line’s inspiration. “If they were present what would they be wearing? This allowed me to open up my creativity to shape designs around who I thought those anons were IRL.”

Titled “ANON—MAYBE YOU SEE ME, MAYBE YOU DON’T,” the collection offers a commentary on the nature of identity — or lack thereof — in the age of the Internet. Examining confident yet unknown faces, Jones fashions a world where the self is “increasingly fluid, negotiable, and, above all, divisible between the seen and unseen,” as the zeitgeist toys with the complexities of existing online.

The garments themselves articulate this sentiment: padded sweaters envelop their wearers with concealing hoods; technical facemasks prevent identification and camouflage wool coats go incognito in natural environments. Elsewhere, cropped jackets boast necklines that reach above the mouth; overcoats are closed shut at the waist with thick storage belts, and utilitarian armbands offer added safety with roomy pouches. “These pieces are not just clothing; they are armors and disguises, enabling wearers to navigate the public sphere with a sense of control over their visibility,” he said.

Through crafting this collection, Jones effectively constructed a clearer image of who his anonymous digital supporters may be: “It turns out they are my people, a diverse group of individuals with unique interests but who all share a similar energy underneath that is starting to really feel like TARPLEY.”

See TARPLEY’s Fall/Winter 2024 collection in the gallery above.