Advisry’s SS27 collection ‘AMERICA, STILL’ inspired by James Baldwin, unfolds in three 1970s-inspired acts exploring America’s tension between collapse and greatness.
The collection moves from distressed denim and trench coats to crocodile capelets and checkerboard suits, ending with sequined and pearl-embellished pieces.
Framed through James Baldwin’s 1969 voice and told in three acts; reaction, dignity, and transformation, Advisry’s Spring/Summer 2027, ‘AMERICA, STILL’ views today’s America through the lens of history.
Advisry’s creative director and designer, 26-year-old Keith Herron, recognizes that the same pressure that causes collapse has always produced greatness. His latest collection doesn’t resolve that tension, it documents it, asking which path we’re actually witnessing. The work sits between America’s overwhelmingly negative present-day sentiment and the ever-present admiration for its cultural output. Herron’s instinct to defend his country, even amidst the current climate, is what drove ‘AMERICA, STILL’.
To unpack that uncertainty, Herron turned to the 1970s — a decade of comparable political and cultural unrest — structuring the show into three acts. The first act drew inspiration from Travis Bickle, the antihero of Taxi Driver, through a distressed denim mini dress, drop-shoulder trench coats, and buckled leather jackets. Act two was based on the era of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, with crocodile-leather capelets, boxy tartan vests, and checkerboard suits. The final act turned to optimism, closing with sequined basketball shorts, pearl-embellished jackets, and metallic knit sweaters — suggesting Herron sees a bright future for both his country and for Advisry.
The Spring/Summer 2027 show drew a packed house in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, including Public School’s Maxwell Osborne and KidSuper’s Colm Dillane. On every seat sat a fan printed with a photo of Herron’s father as a young boy, fifty years ago — the same retrospective that inspired the collection’s title, ‘AMERICA, STILL.’ The show sits at the intersection of Advisry’s core mission: craft, cultural authorship, and sartorial precision, producing garments with both intellectual rigor and a distinctly American ease, proving yet again that Advisry’s collections are built as world-systems, not just products.
