On the cover of Omar Apollo’s newest album, God Said No, the Indiana-born heartthrob smoulders towards the camera clad in a shaggy faux fur that cocoons his frame. It’s the work of rising New York label Okane, led by Alex O’Kane. Launched in 2021, the brand is built around the ethos of observing what “classic menswear can mean in all different contexts,” says the designer. “Each season I study clothing from different periods of time and think about how they may be incorporated in a contemporary wardrobe.”
O’Kane has always been surrounded by fashion since his earliest years. Through the 1980s his mother worked in the industry. “I grew up exposed to beautiful clothing from all over the world that she would buy,” says O’Kane, who also remembers rummaging through his aunt’s magazine archive from a young age. He first showed an interest in designing when he was 12 when he attempted to sew a dress from leftover fabric he discovered in his house. “I showed the dress to [my aunt Patty] and immediately she put it on and complimented it. In hindsight it probably wasn’t a great dress, but the encouragement meant everything,” he says. “I was very lucky to have a family that always encouraged my interests and helped show me how to work hard to get it.”
O’Kane always knew he wanted to be in the arts, but sometime in his early teens he settled on the idea of designing clothing. The turning point was discovering a Loïc Prigent’s docu-series on the late Karl Lagerfeld. “I watched it in small 10-minute parts through various online streaming platforms. I think that series was what solidified my fascination with fashion and my desire to become a designer.” During high school, he would take weekend classes at FIT and Parsons in everything from computer animation to drawing and basic fabric draping. “This was probably the closest I ever got to any sort of formal fashion training,” says the designer, who admits after college he became a bit aimless.
“I got off track a bit and lost sight of what motivated me and what it was i wanted to pursue.” After an 8-year period where O’Kane didn’t draw, sculpt or paint a single thing, it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic hit that he decided it was finally time to make his first foray into the fashion world. “Perhaps out of some morbid response to what seemed at the time like the uncertainty of life and society, I just decided to do the thing I had wanted to do since I was a kid. I didn’t know anything about how to do it. I had no real experience in the industry, no connections – I didn’t even know where to buy fabric or how to make a sample. But I just started.” His father was on hand to give him advise how to run a business, but he was basically out on his own. The first two years were tough. “I don’t have any employees or interns so whether it’s delivering bolts of fabric to the cutting room, packing and shipping orders, organizing inventory, picking up supplies, invoicing, taking the trash out, getting insurance, doing bookkeeping, it’s just me. The plus side is you know every part of your business inside and out. The downside is your back is usually sore and you’re always tired.”
From the jump, what’s stood out about O’Kane’s designs is the quality of the designs. He produces his collections in New York’s garment district. “I come from a New York City family business in electrical contracting, so I grew up in a place that had deep ties to the city,” he says. “It was always such a remarkable thing to see how that business became woven into the literary structure of this city. I knew when I started I wanted to have a similar feeling.”
“Things cost more, yes. You have to work harder to find what you need, yes. But you see where your stuff is being made,” he continues. “You know the names of the people who produce your clothing, you build in person relationships with the suppliers, It becomes a more satisfying experience as a business owner.”
From the fabrics Okane uses through to the construction techniques of the brand’s garments, everything is produced to a sublime quality. His collections are peppered with cropped cotton and wool button up jackets, chiffon smocks, classic white button down shirts elevated using suede and kinky, leather hoods.
In researching his collections, O’Kane looks how people dressed in yesteryear, “thinking how we can bring some of that back into today’s wardrobe.” For instance, leading up to his AW22 collection, he spent days trawling through the MET’s medieval armory section, building a collection around medieval workwear, religious garments, and fetish wear. For his SS24 outing he wanted to do something completely different. “Gone where the leather hoods, and heavy furs and instead I was doing sheer silk tops, diaphanous skirts, tie dyed leather jackets,” says the designer. “I wanted something that was very airy and light, but still had moments of toughness in it.” A standout piece from the collection was the Yoke Shirt, a dress shirt that draws inspiration from Dutch Golden Age paintings. “The combination of their collars and their white undershirts slowly melded into this shirt which was constructed with a bamboo cotton blend yoke and silk sleeves and body. It’s a rather feminine collection, but I liked that contrast with the very dark and masculine [mood] of last season.”
Still very much operating as a small brand, O’Kane strives to continue to define his brand’s aesthetic as he continues to grow his namesake label. “I want my brand to change and evolve with me,” says the designer. “Being a smaller brand allows for that sort of constant evolution in a way that is harder for larger brands sometimes. I think if I can grow the business and maintain that ability to change and shift course as my creative interests also evolve, I would be happy.”
Images courtesy of Kat Slootsky
