The Story Behind Gauntlett Cheng's New Campaign

Gauntlett Cheng is the downtown-fueled fashion line that does things their own way. Take, for example, the fashion shows, which are held at unconventional locations (like a Tribeca apartment on a winding side street) or the pieces themselves, comprised of what seems like everyday garments with subtle, daring twists that would make anyone do a double take. Case in point: button-down shirts with strategically-placed slices (the brand refers to them as breast-feeding shirts,) or maxi-length bandeau dresses chopped and rendered as something that feels completely new. Many of the looks were also styled with babushka-like scarves.

Esther Gauntlett and Jenny Cheng (alumni of Eckhaus Latta) founded the brand together in 2014 as a way to explore “work life, financial anxiety, sexuality, a sense of home, desire, frustration and nostalgia,” through the vessel of womenswear and menswear.

Titled “Soon Ripe, Soon Rotten,” the duo’s seventh collection was presented in the aforementioned Tribeca apartment in September 2017, and focuses on textile development and the distortion of silhouettes. “The ‘G’ and ‘C’ characters  seen in the collection were developed through hand-drawn illustrations featuring ‘grape’, ‘carpet’, ‘grass’, ‘cheese,’ which were then airbrushed onto a semi sheer nude stretch fabric,” according to Cheng.

Along with all that, comes the new ad campaign that pulls from some of the very same references, and the definitive aesthetic of the new collection. "We wanted the portraits to be shot in the same location as the show - an empty apartment where the models walked through a winding hallways, kitchens and bedrooms," Cheng told L'Officiel USA. "The photos were shot either seated in a closet or the doorway between two small rooms, domestic and personal spaces that are pretty far removed from traditional fashion sets."

Below, a first look of Gauntlett Cheng’s new campaign shot on film by Rob Kulisek, designed by Matthew Tsang and styled by Akeem Smith.