Levi Okunov's Torah-Inspired Fashion Show Shakes Things Up at the Jewish Museum

Orthodox Jews, renegade Hasidim, fashionistas and art aficionados converged on New York’s Jewish Museum last Thursday night for the unveiling of wily and prodigious designer Levi Okunov’s new, museum-inspired collection. The show represented the climax to the institution’s two-week “Off the Wall” series, a program of young, Jewish artists working in a variety of media.

The show began, much like the Torah, in stark darkness. Suddenly, the runway was illuminated by Melissa Shiff’s “JAMS: The Jewish Animated Mandala Series.” The crowd was confronted with a series of ritual objects bursting into a spectrum of fractal patterns, accompanied by spacey, ambient music. Minutes later, figure skater Oksana Baiul appeared on the runway draped in vertical stripes reminiscent of the black and white pattern favored by some sects of Hasidim. After prowling the runway, she squealed as if just completing a triple-axle and then skipped back towards the curtain.

Baiul’s eccentric walk embodied the aggressive and playful tone of the program to follow. Okunov seamlessly combined Jewish iconography with rejection of fashion industry conventions and Orthodox values through his use of rough, strange and impossible materials -- the costumes to a psychedelic, Yiddish-punk opera.

The designer’s fashions simultaneously established him as one of the top, young artists working in both traditions and distanced him from them -- an outsider, an anti-hero. “There is a difference between the fashion world and the art world, I am leaning more towards the art world,” the precocious designer explained, “I am making wearable art. I’m happy not to be part of [the fashion industry].”

More controversially, the collection was primarily inspired by the Torah -- models were wrapped in parchment, intricately crowned and adorned in velvet. Sacred symbols were stitched and screened across a diverse palate of patterns and materials. Golden Commandments played against lush maroon, while the primitive silhouette of a menorah resembled a spine on the back of one sheer dress and pubic hair on the crotch of another. “People get caught up in symbols and fabric,” Okunov said, addressing the controversial nature of his creations, “but the Torah says every human is a bible, every body is a light. We must look at human beings with more respect than objects.”

After the show, when most of the guests clamored for the open vodka bar, Okunov escaped with a group of models, collaborators (including painter Rita Ackermann and makeup artist Linda Mason) and close friends to an intimate gallery backstage. A prolific retrospective of his half-decade-long career -- replete with Okunov’s signature spaceship-silver metallics, vibrant colors and asymmetric cuts -- crowded around them.

Nonagenarian nightlife luminary and hard-partying humanitarian Zelda Kaplan, a fan and admirer of Levi’s, showed up to support the designer with her equally identifiable companion Uncle Jimmy. “It’s beautiful,” Zelda beamed, “very cutting edge, he’s not afraid.” Uncle Jimmy added, “I can’t wait to see heads roll. There was a lot of innuendo, I expect death threats.”

Photos by Adam Christie