The first hoodie to ever grace Dior’s runway arrived on Thursday evening at the Spring 2023 show, which took place in Venice Beach, California, right under the Venice sign. The catwalk was designed to resemble the barrel of a wave that washed Windward Avenue in a hue of ocean blue and swept through Venice’s iconic colonnades. The paneled hoodie resembled something like a new age, yin and yang symbol, one of the most recognizable motifs from ERL, the American ready-to-wear label designed by Eli Russell Linnetz, the guest designer for Dior’s Spring 2023 capsule collection.
Before breaking the internet with ASAP Rocky’s Met Gala look, which was made from a quilt 30-year-old Linnetz found in a thrift store, the “Wave” hoodie was one of Linnetz’s first garments to gain widespread attention after Kanye West, one of fashion’s greatest hoodie sommeliers co-signed it by simply tweeting, “My friend Eli’s hoodie. Love this.” That was before the designer even released his first full ready-to-wear collection in 2021.
And like yin and yang, Dior’s latest collection was indeed a meeting of opposing perspectives that harmoniously clashed with one another in the beachside city that Linnetz calls home. Kim Jones, the French fashion house’s artistic director of menswear, is no stranger to such surprising collaborations. Jones’ tenure at the house has led to Dior collaborations with artists like Kaws and has brought streetwear pioneers like Shawn Stüssy out of retirement. But letting Linnetz take the stage to reinterpret Dior’s rich archive and create garments described as “California Couture” has led to one of Dior’s most memorable menswear collections.
“I always wanted to work in fashion,” Linnetz told Complex at the Dover Street Market Paris showroom in 2020. “I remember being a kid and always drawing and sketching things out. But I kind of thought maybe that was just a fantasy. Once I started doing video work, stage design, and photography I was like, ‘When will I ever have time to do that?’ But it ended up happening very organically.”
Despite learning how to sew when he was a teenager, Linnetz didn’t pursue fashion until he was connected to Dover Street Market president Adrian Joffe to produce a commercial for an Andy Warhol collaboration with Comme des Garçons Parfum. ERL is one of Dover Street Market Paris’ breakout brands. He’s part of a talent incubator for young brands that also includes Dan Colen’s Sky High Farm and Patric DiCaprio’s Vaquera. Joffe originally tapped Linnetz to design a shopping bag for Dover Street Market’s Los Angeles store opening. But later, Joffe saw a larger opportunity to hone in on the multitalented young creative by urging him to launch his own clothing label through Dover Street Market.
Like many young American designers today, Linnetz made his debut through a colorful array of T-shirts and hoodies. His debut at DSM was a run of Nike T-shirts and hoodies that featured graphics by the Los Angeles-based artist Jordan Wolfson—a friend of Linnetz who also helped make ERL’s first in-store installation at the store. According to Linnetz, when Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo saw the installation she simply said, “You know, Eli means ‘genius’ in Japanese.”
While there were luxurious interpretations of ERL’s popular “Wave” hoodie that boasted silver tinsel trim, T-shirts were mostly absent from the collection except for one with a graphic that was Linnetz’s reinterpretation of a newspaper print originally popularized by John Galliano. Linnetz slightly tweaked the iconic graphic by changing the Galliano “Gazette” to the “Venice Vanguard” and added his own photographs of skaters from Venice Beach, ads from the 1970s, and even photos from the day Venice Beach opened in 1905.
Since launching ERL in 2018, Linnetz has honed in on an uniquely American vision as a designer with ready-to-wear collections that manage to capture many decades of style found within his home state of California. In the past, his collections have dialed in on looks that feel inspired by the skiers of Squaw Valley in the ‘80s or Vietnam War protesters in Berkeley during the ‘60s. Specifically, for his Dior collaboration, it felt very much tapped in to the relaxed style of those who popularized the most well known subculture to come out of Venice Beach: skateboarders.
Although the Z-Boys of the ‘70s would have likely scoffed at Dior’s billowing pairs of jeans and slacks, Tony Hawk was all smiles while wearing a pair as he entered the show. Meanwhile the footwear included a fat chunky, Dior skateboard sneaker with loosely knit laces that boasted quilted leather. This felt like a missed opportunity to collaborate with the iconic Californian skateboard footwear label DC Shoes, founded by Ken Block and Damon Way.
After Linnetz launched ERL’s first ready-to-wear collection in 2021, the label moved into womenswear, suiting, accessories, and childrenswear. Linnetz shoots and casts his own lookbooks and also works with other talents associated with his earliest mentor, West—he’s frequently tapped Ye’s former stylist, Renelou Padora, to style his collections. While a quilted ERL robe worn by A$AP Rocky is not the typical everyday look, many of ERL’s garments still feel democratized. Anyone could wear his gradient knit sweaters or his ever popular quilted down jackets that boast patterns of hearts or sunsets. Like his popular “Wave” hoodies, Linnetz for Dior reinterpreted these ERL hits for a more luxurious market that also remained true to Dior’s heritage. Tailored suits inspired by the work of Gianfranco Ferré were puffed up, ERL-style, and reimagined with ocean recovered polyester.
Surprisingly, especially when considering Linnetz’s background as a student who studied screenwriting and worked for the American playwright David Mamet, there was a lack of theatrics that one might have expected to see from the young designer’s first live presentation.
The final look, however, was certainly a showstopper: an opera cape made out of a patchwork of plaid shirting and upcycled sports jerseys. It was a full circle moment of sorts—when Linnetz was a student at USC, he sewed costumes for the school’s opera department to pay his tuition. As the saying goes, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. And ERL’s show must go on.