Wiederhoeft Captures ‘Modern Nostalgia’ for Fall 2024

Attending a Wiederhoeft show can often be an out-of-body experience. Last season, 29-year-old Jackson Wiederhoeft welcomed attendees into Le Mama — an immersive theater space in which dance ensembles and fully developed characters portrayed by actors bounced around the venue, giving a new meaning to the phrase “fashion show.” But the truth is that Wiederhoeft doesn’t need big theatrics to have an impact. The clothing speaks for itself.

Clearly, Wiederhoeft knows this about his brand, hence the decision to hold Tuesday’s Fall 2024 show in a barren setting with bright, flickering purple lights and a fog machine as the only extra production details. “This ended up being a lot more exciting than I expected,” Wiederhoeft told Fashionista backstage. “Instead of having performances, we had our movement director Austin Goodwin come in for all the fittings and work with the models to create a story for their walks.”

Each model carried a specific energy — some making deliberate eye contact with audience members as if to say, “Yeah, I know my outfit is amazing,” while others walked so delicately that they appeared to be floating down the runway. The show notes simply read, “Floor to ceiling, wall to wall.” Meaning?

“That’s what [the brand] is. It’s not a casual thing. It’s the whole shebang, the whole zhuzh, the give,” Wiederhoeft explained. “I think our shoppers tend to be people who are extremely passionate about dressing.”

As much as Wiederhoeft, known for its fantastical demi-couture creations, is not “a casual thing,” the designer admits that, as time goes on, “people can engage [with the brand] casually.” In that spirit, he introduced loungewear that’s just as unbelievably elaborate and seamlessly constructed as the collection’s corsets or sequin-embroidered animal-print patterns. Hooded sweatshirts with tinsel borders and ribbon finishes, and what look to be ultra-soft-yet-perfectly-tailored sweatpants, made their way down the runway. But don’t get it confused — this loungewear is far from simple.

“It’s a lot of fun for me to work with silhouette as canvas and see how far we can push it in either direction,” Wiederhoeft says. “As time goes on, I really want to explore every facet of the Wiederhoeft wearer’s life. There are really specific ways people wear even simple things that I find really inspiring.” The designer points to look nine, where the hem of a long-sleeved shirt pokes out from under a T-shirt. “The subtleties of subtle. That’s the kind of thing that I love.”

These subtleties are inspired by the Instagram stories of friends, the people you see as you walk out of a nightclub after a long evening — all things that capture the essence of what Wiederhoeft calls “modern nostalgia.” Ultimately, he says, “It’s always a girl who’s a little bit on a journey.”

See all the looks from Wiederhoeft Fall 2024 below.

Wiederhoeft Fall 2024. Photo: Launchmetrics Spotlight