LUCKY JEWEL SS23
When I spoke, you heard your own voice. You see yourself within me, blinking twice, but I am not a reflection, a smoldering pool, flickering with a longing that writhes. I am a vessel and although my arms hold you now, I’ve been reaching for my own hand to hold, an always in forever – to show me the way. In this moment, I am brave. I walk backwards towards our genesis, tracing my steps, remembering what it felt like to stand where I stood, smiling. I gather these feelings and accept their whispers as words not promises, they tell me things that I’m afraid I’ll one day forget. I weave them together, they make ribbons. Threading the needle is a matter of endurance, with these strings I build bridges between you and me so I can always find my way home. I’ll follow a voice and it is my own.
*Photos Courtesy of Benjamin Taylor
For its sixth iteration, Lucky Jewel presents its first, formal body of work taking shape as a runway show. Past iterations of Lucky Jewel have typically involved world-building in temporary spaces – as the New York-based fashion + arts collective headed by Olive Woodward, Shay Gallagher, and Lola Dement Myers – have transformed galleries, apartments and clubs alike into installations that house somatic group shows. During these events, shopping as a discipline is explored as Lucky Jewel’s community of makers create objects of sentimental value with singular narratives to be bought and sold – yet the real exchange can’t be counted, it is felt but intangible, belonging purely to the realm of emotion.
As Lucky Jewel creates environments that engender deeper connection between makers and the wider community, unique energies are cultivated within. These energies linger and continue to inform its amorphous evolution but through this iteration, Lucky Jewel gives itself a platform so that it can explore its own essence. By recollecting and re-collecting what was cultivated over the years spanning back to its genesis at Laura (a shared living and art space) in Chicago in 2018, materials that were held onto find renewed purpose, individual practices coalesce and a new voice emerges. Sentimentality takes on a new definition as it aligns with this notion of giving oneself back to oneself.
The collection itself, designed by Woodward and Gallagher, is the translation of these energies into something wearable. There is an active play on our quotidian that questions what it means to work and play, to fantasize and live – the pseudo simulacra of existence. With studded g-strings, foam purses, ultra low-rise business skirts and repurposed suiting materials transformed into tube-tops, there’s an innate humor to Lucky Jewel’s outlook. What happens when we become a caricature of ourselves? What does it mean to perform? We can’t draw the line but we can feel it.
Photos Courtesy of Alexia MavroleonFeatured Press: *To request a copy of the Press Release or links to add'l images please contact me directly xo 
Photos Courtesy of Matthew Weinberger
Photos Courtesy of Meghan McClenny 
Photos Courtesy of Michelle Corvino