Yonkers for DDUGOFF
PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER GABELLO.
To shoot his DDUGOFF Spring/Summer 2016 look book, Daniel DuGoff headed to a house in Yonkers owned by close family friends. “I’ve been coming to this house my whole life,” explains the menswear designer. “This collection needed to be shot outside,” he continues. “[It’s] is softer than the previous ones—not only in some of the color palette, but also in the fabrics and general mood—and it was important to show the collection in this verdant place that I love. The garden around the house had been in the back of my mind since the beginning.”
DuGoff, who studied architecture, previously spent time working at Patrik Ervell, Derek Lam, and Marc by Marc Jacobs. He started his eponymous collection just two years ago, with the idea of creating clothes that were relatable and repeatable, but never dull. “It’s a small detail that says a lot about the type of guy who wears DDUGOFF,” says DuGoff. “He’s wearing the same stuff day after day.” One of DuGoff’s favorite such details from the new collection is a loop connected to the beltloops of each pair of pants. “Rather than putting pants into the laundry or folding them up and putting them back in the drawer, [my customer] is slinging them on a chair or hanging them on a peg,” he notes.
Based in NoHo in downtown New York, DuGoff produces his entire collection in the New York/New Jersey area with the exception of prints, which he designs in-house and makes in Northern Italy, and some knitwear, which he produces in Los Angeles. Before beginning a new season, the designer gathers images and books he has quietly been collecting for the last six months. “I pull together the ones that stand out the most and draw connections. Categories emerge,” he says.
One recurring theme for DuGoff is “the movement of a large group.” For Spring/Summer 2016, DuGoff was particularly focused on “flocks of birds, flocks of sheep, and schools of fish.” Other inspirations included images of walls and fences scrawled over with graffiti and repainted (“The new paint doesn’t match the old paint, and the layers of not quite the same color create such rich patterns), and “sentence diagrams,” which “help build the mood and narrative.”
Click through the slideshow above for our exclusive behind-the-scenes images of DDUGOFF’s Spring/Summer 2016 look book shoot.
DDUGOFF IS STOCKED AT OPENING CEREMONY, GOOSE BARNACLE, AND SWORDS-SMITH IN NEW YORK. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT THE LABEL’S WEBSITE.
