On sunny Wednesday afternoon, J. Mendel returned to the runway at the top of the One World Observatory with its newly appointed resident designer Jonathan Cohen for its spring 2027 collection.
“They had contacted me a few days before I was taking off the month of August for the first time. I got a phone call about the opportunity, had the interview after I landed and ended up getting back on the plane to New York with Layla, my dog and started working,” Cohen said backstage of crafting the collection in about two short months.
J. Mendel’s roots go back to 1870s imperial Russia, before the house relocated to New York in the ’80s under Gilles Mendel, fifth-generation member of the founding family. In 2015, New York-based Stallion Inc. bought a stake in the business from Gores Group, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2018. Dennis Basso then took the business under his company’s umbrella.
“It was so important to me to push myself and also be like, “This is about J. Mendel, the atelier and how we bring it into a new chapter,” he said of his goal, including shying away from his own brand’s aesthetics, upon entering the house.
“I’ve always loved the house and the craft that goes behind it. There are certain things I knew about the house, and there are certain things I didn’t until I got in there,” Cohen said. “I love the idea that the house has been over 150 years and have techniques that they’ve been working on since then. It was about taking their incredible craftsmanship and tailoring, crafted by some people that have worked there for 30 years, which I don’t hold with disregard.”
This mindset came to fruition first through Cohen’s musical inspirations, a meld of Debussy classical tunes he Shazam’d from a patternmaker in the J. Mendel atelier and his own Airpods tunes of Adéla. “These overlapping soundtracks combine to create flashes of inspiration,” his show notes read.
From there, Cohen looked inside the historical house’s garments and was inspired by their interiors, which led to his collection’s fluid looks crafted from bias chiffon strips that were each cut by hand, draped on the body and handsewn together. They came in shades of red as an asymmetric top paired with tailored baby pink trousers, in ivory as seen cut into the sides of a classic trenchcoat, and as sand and baby blue fluid dresses, both long and short to appeal to the brand’s long-standing clientele and garner a new, younger generation of customers.
“J. Mendel has their clients and wants to bring new ones, and they both need to speak to each other, the younger and the older. It shouldn’t be separated, and that was really important to bring in a new generation and something new to the woman who already exists,” Cohen explained of upping the ante not only with eveningwear, as seen through cascading gowns and a bold-shouldered tuxedo, but also reworking the brand’s heritage into elevated, dressier daywear.
Cohen said taking the American atelier’s techniques and pushing them forward was of the utmost importance, also seen through a great selection of sculptural leather layers. Although his jacket and paperbag skirt looked substantial, they were buttery and light, as Cohen used J. Mendel’s fur machine to fuse the garments together, crating seamless, allowance-free pieces. Furthermore, he peppered in the brand’s iconic furs into funky pair of luxe basketball shorts.
Immediately following the show, Cohen said the collection would be available at J. Mendel’s store for private order appointments. The brand is also talking to select buyers and, “has bigger plans for the future,” he hinted.
“She needs to be in Mendel all the time,” he said of the lineup, which also included twisted leather T-shirts, pretty printed orange draped and pleated dresses, and statement evening looks with details spanning from colorful, shimmering embroideries and bias-cut strips to cutouts and sheer panels. Although much of his lineup leaned heavy-handed or overly undone, the most notable bias looks were the ones designed for ease, modernity and lightness.