Chris Leba's R13 ready to wear fall 2022 come to life

"You want to use all the words," he tell on video call, as with any good storey. Prior to the pandemic, R13 revelled in graphic grunginess: Straightforward, baggy clothing. It's cool, but it's not always interesting. Leba's vernacular shifted slightly for pre-fall 2022, with the addition of unusual and challenging silhouettes. His prose had come to life.

The structural testing will continue until the fall of 2022. Leba has pulled the back collars of jackets and shirts up into hoods, inspired by a gothic, witchy spirit. The conical headgear is more than just a fashion statement ballooning pleats are added to the back of each garment to make it modular, allowing it to transform from a regular top to something more akin to a dress.

Leba arrived by recalling his Limelight days: The New York club was famously lit by stained glass windows from a church. His work is influenced by the dichotomy of sweet and sacred. When he really digs in, he's able to create one-of-a-kind garments that exist somewhere between hype and haunting. 

"We had this ability to do all of this, but we weren't showing people that we could actually do all of these structural, interesting things," he said of his pre-COVID studio. When Leba and his team want to flex their dementedly chic muscles, they are difficult to beat.