NYC VIBE with the Designer Who Invents New Outfits While Reinventing Himself - In Earnest!

September 2021 - Lower East Side, NYC:

We first met Byron Lars back in 1991 when he was named “Rookie of the Year” by Women’s Wear Daily.

Now more than 30 years later, and in the midst of a global pandemic, Lars is up to something again.

NYC VIBE sat down with the trendy designer to learn more about the In Earnest collection, which is inspired by Lars’s Harlem neighborhood, particularly the African street vendors and the treasures they sell on the street.

The native Californian reflects on designing clothes now for the business community still working from home but yearning to go out at night - on his many dresses worn by First Lady Michelle Obama and a career within a career designing a generation of Barbie girls that was the talk of the nation.

As a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Lars met the legendary Karl Lagerfeld at a fashion competition in Monte Carlo that changed his life and firmed up his commitment to the fashion industry.

Byron told us that casual everyday clothes are what American culture is about, and certainly in African American culture too. Historically it was about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and I’m sure the lineage of that somehow expresses itself in what he is doing.”

NYC VIBE saw this first hand at the recent StylePointe Fashion Show during NY Fashion Week.