Remember Daryl Kerrigan? The designer—whose famously skinny trousers formed the basis for many downtown types’ ’90s wardrobes, this writer’s included—has signed on with Madewell to create an 18-piece capsule collection focused on denim. The company will celebrate the launch as New York’s Fall fashion shows kick off next week, and the collection will be available for top Madewell customers on February 8.
A small designer with outsize influence, Kerrigan had a tiny storefront on East Sixth Street; later she opened on Bond Street. I bought my first pair of designer pants at the Sixth Street shop—charcoal gray, low slung, and straight-legged with the slightest kick at the hem—and wore them to my assistant job at W magazine. A “Daryl K New York” T-shirt with a Twin Tower–studded skyline etched in gold glitter has been stuffed in the back of my bottom drawer for going on 20 years.
I’m not the only one who remembers Daryl’s clothes so fondly. Kerrigan reports that she and Jenna Lyons, president and creative director of J.Crew, which owns Madewell, had been tossing around the idea of a collaboration for a while before this one came together. The timing couldn’t be better. The ’90s have become a touchstone off the runway (vogueing is big again, Full House is once more on the air, and, fingers crossed, there could be a Clinton in the White House). On the runway, slip dresses have been a major thing for two seasons now, and we expect to see even more Kate Moss–isms in the collections this season.
Kerrigan shrugs off the ’90s affiliation, laughing at the notion that an entire decade could be summed up in an outfit or a collection. “It wasn’t about a fashion, it was about an attitude, and a theory of how to dress,” she says of the time. “It wasn’t about throw-away anything.” Anyway, her new clothes for Madewell lean more in a 1970s direction. “I love denim flares,” she said. “There’s some really awesome flares in there, and there’s a fitted little jean jacket. They make such a good look together. I love tailoring, and fit is really important and you can achieve that in denim.”
The Madewell gig marks a new beginning for the designer. Of sorts. While her name fell off the New York calendar, and she closed her Bond Street store in 2012, Kerrigan never completely went away. She’s quietly been selling stretch leather leggings on her e-commerce site for years. (She launched them in 1999, by the way, ages before brands like The Row got there.) Regular visitors will notice an uptick in the variety of merchandise available on the site as early as next week. We’re angling for a redux of her excellent skinny pants.
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