So far as trend week criticism, pushback from the president of El Salvador wouldn’t usually be a major concern for many designers.
However that unlikely predicament was what Willy Chavarria confronted, after exhibiting his spring 2026 assortment throughout Paris Males’s Vogue Week on June 27. In the beginning of the present, males of various ethnicities with shaved heads and all-white outfits walked onto the runway, knelt down and bowed their torsos and heads as they put their arms behind their backs.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who was not on the present, interpreted that montage as being harking back to pictures of El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle. That maximum-security jail, which is called CECOT, is the place U.S. President Donald Trump has despatched tons of of immigrants who’re going through deportation from the U.S.
After the actual fact, Bukele publicly criticized the present on X and prompt sending prisoners from El Salvador’s largest jail to Paris Vogue Week. Chavarria stated Wednesday that he first realized of the pushback from his public relations group. “My first thought was, ‘Superb publicity for my model. Thanks. Superb world attain,’” he stated.
Backstage at Willy Chavarria’s spring 2026 present throughout Paris Males’s Vogue Week.
Fran Gomez de Villaboa/WWD
“Sadly, we dwell in a really divided world. I believe that anybody who’s an artist goes to obtain some type of commentary from individuals who won’t align with their concepts. However for me, the artwork is the first expression. I’m not attacking anybody. I’m not doing something that’s aggressively rebellious in any approach. I’m merely creating a creative imaginative and prescient that speaks to how I really feel. It’s actually that easy,” Chavarria stated.
The Mexican American artistic stated the present was meant “to spotlight the significance of an incontrovertible fact that everybody deserves to be handled with dignity. That’s actually the inspiration of the model. On this second, the place we’re seeing the degradation and deterioration of look after each other the world over, I had no alternative however to focus on what we’re seeing in america.”
The present’s stylist, Carlos Nazario, declined to remark Wednesday, in keeping with his agent at Artwork Associate Audrey Houssin. The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, which oversees Paris Vogue Week, declined to remark.
Willy Chavarria on the runway at Paris Males’s Vogue Week.
Dominique Maitre/WWD
The designer stated that his choice to call the present “Huron,” as an ode to his agricultural hometown in California, was made 5 months in the past when the gathering was being developed. It was not nearly Chavarria’s story, but additionally how “folks, who’re from immigrant communities, can actually flourish and provides the world probably the most unimaginable expertise, music, shade, trend and artwork,” he stated. “That’s one thing I actually needed have a good time on this assortment. I needed it to be optimistic and vigorous.”
He continued, “However come present time, we’re seeing among the most horrifying issues taking place throughout america with the disappearing of individuals and households being damaged up — absolute horror. I’m referring to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and people pretending to be ICE, and those that are simply merely performing out in horrific racially charged methods attacking immigrants.”
The designer stated he included a portion within the present that was talking to that and that enables folks to problem the established order and to offer area to a greater world by beginning with these, who’re in positions of energy, to serve us. CECOT was only a portion of the assertion. It wasn’t all about CECOT or El Salvador. It’s about this query of individuals being dehumanized, and it’s a broader dialogue of dehumanization. It’s seeing folks like I’m being fully dehumanized on a world scale.”
Willy Chavarria spring 2026
Dominique Maitre/WWD
The white shirts and white shorts that the fashions wore had been made by a partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union. Representatives didn’t reply to media requests.
Chavarria stated the “very Los Angeles and really Chicana look” was used “to actually symbolize the simplicity of a trend look that’s being focused. And the boys had been all in white to characterize an innocence,” he stated. “These males had been representing harmless males being kidnapped. The parallels of CECOT had been drawn very vividly with this president from El Salvador taking it upon himself to actually join with what he’s doing. After all, it’s a wider assertion. Anyone who’s minimizing this inventive expression to what’s taking place in El Salvador is absolutely making an attempt to misguide the dialog.”
Greater than something, Chavarria stated he was making an attempt to point out “this disrespect for humanity that we’re seeing globally and to distinction that with the unimaginable expertise and expression from me and everybody that participates within the work that I do.”
That features all the fashions, who walked within the present, all the expertise that put it collectively, and the immigrants that make and wash the garments, he stated. That commentary applies to not simply his model, however to the style enterprise usually, Chavarria stated.
Final week’s runway present featured the third installment of the Adidas Originals x Willy Chavarria collaboration, which included T-shirts imprinted with “America” the other way up. Executives at Adidas didn’t acknowledge media requests.
The designer stated, “Adidas and I work collectively so the expression of the present all the time was what it was. This political response has been a bit extra exaggerated by the El Savador president, who selected to possibly out of guilt or who is aware of what? For me, this doesn’t have an effect on my enterprise in any respect.”
Bringing his dad and mom and some family to final week’s runway present was a excessive level, stated the designer, who was nonetheless in Paris Wednesday. “They’re so pleased with me. It was so highly effective and particular. It was such a ravishing second for them and for me to have them right here. I’ve simply been surrounded by pleasure and happiness round this entire present. It’s been so well-received and I’m simply so completely happy to be embraced by the French and Parisian trend world.”
Keen as he’s to return to New York on Friday to reunite along with his husband and their canine, the designer stated that doesn’t precisely imply he can be kicking again. “I haven’t had down time since I used to be seven years previous,” he stated.
