SPRING 2020 READY-TO-WEAR

Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor dream in color: big, bold, and uninhibited bursts of patterns, halting neons, and sometimes clashing prints born from their imaginative, iconically Southern Californian minds. And sure, much has been written about their role in the invention of the athleisure we know today, but the real fuss and focus of the pair is on the touch and feel of each and every design. Spring 2020 is no different. Every last texture has a tactile quality that has the designers more excited than the last. Micro-scuba, a fabric they continue to use for their mix and match tracksuits, paired nicely with an array of lightweight nylon designs that had a slippery and slinkier feel. While their forever-favorite velour was nowhere in sight, the pair put a focus on supersoft fleece for Spring instead, about as pared back as the two get, in head-to-toe looks that felt more authentically streetwear—a new detail Nash-Taylor attributed to her own daughter.

And those prints, all hand-drawn in their Hollywood offices, remained as energetic as ever. A bold pink lip print was a standout, as were snake block prints with hints of neon, a campy Hawaiian motif, and a blown-out sequin floral pattern in a muted digital print that turned a tracksuit into their version of a formal affair. Fitting for Nash-Taylor, the designer credits music as an ongoing influence in her designs and cited Lizzo as the embodiment of the sort of female empowerment Pam & Gela hopes to harness with its day-to-night looks, which just so happen to also incorporate Move Fast, its curated collection of four-way Lycra stretch workout essentials. In the end, their design DNA remains strong, but it allows them to create for themselves, which is exactly what they intend to (continue to) do. As Nash-Taylor says: “This is me dressing for myself. I can look at the other shows and say, ‘I love that, but where am I going in that?’ But, I know exactly where I’m going in this.”