At Luar, Raul Lopez Steps In With His Good Foot
On Monday night, the audacious downtown New York label unleashed a Fall 2025 collection celebrating the flamboyancy that once made Lopez the subject of ridicule.
In NYC’s Financial District on Monday night, Luar shut down New York Fashion Week with a bass-bumping, high-octane Fall 2025 show, titled “El Pato.” With NLE Choppa, Moses Sumney and Honey Balenciaga in the front row, massive Ana bags scattered all over the runway’s Financial District lobby venue, and a fiercely unapologetic collection that could only be the product of Dominican-American designer Raul Lopez, the spectacle was a real reminder of Luar’s cultish chokehold on American fashion grounds.
The collection’s title, “El Pato,” is a slur used against gay men in the Caribbean; and on his runway, Lopez did everything in his power to highlight, liberate and celebrate all of the qualities that once made him the subject of such ridicule.
Constricting hoods emphasized stereotypically queer hand gestures. Flamboyant suiting turned corporate drag. Extravagant silhouettes nodded to the ballroom community. An “I Talk Shit About You in Spanish” top was honestly vulgar. And flavorful Ana bags were ferociously tender, nodding to the women who shaped Lopez’s practice: his mother, his grandmothers and sisters, all of whom are named Ana.
Luar has always been “for the culture”—that is the brand’s tagline, after all. It’s about platforming the voices that circle and boost the brand with a design language so theatrically referential of its muses that there’s often no need to guess the name on the tag.
Lopez often says, “When you step in, step in with your good foot.” The mantra, which he picked up from the queens on Christopher Street as a young New Yorker, propels his creative craft today. With the crowd’s contagious claps, the models’ fast struts and the fashion’s total valor, a Luar show is always a ball of its own. And it’s clear that Lopez’s footwork is as sharp as ever.
See Luar’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection in the gallery above, and stay tuned to Hypebeast for more New York Fashion Week coverage.
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