Our Legacy Spring 2025 ready-to-wear collection

Our Legacy’s influence on menswear is such that editors, in shorthand, describe some emerging brands as trying to be the next OL. In essence, they speak of the inheritance of Our heritage – the inheritance ²?—which includes an anti-fashion stance that embraces grunge, motorcycle, and military influences and lends a sense of timelessness to the pieces. There’s also a muted color palette and, since the introduction of women, a sort of double-barreled androgyny. In short, relaxation (the Holy Grail of fashion) imbued with cool. Some of these elements can be replicated, but the power of “Our” in the brand name cannot be overlooked. This independent label was founded by three close-knit friends, and in his calm, confident way, creative director Cristopher Nying takes his own experiences and summarizes them in such a way that they are both personal and universal.

This season, abstraction was physically evident in the lookbook in which models were photographed behind glass, from a distance, with reflections sometimes adding texture to the images. This could be read as a metaphor for modern life in the digital age, where content is consumed through a glass screen, but Nying had something different in mind.

The starting point for the collection was Greek fishing villages and the photos of fabric-wrapped engines taken there by Nying’s friend Hank Grüner. Beach trash, such as vines, bottle caps, shell fragments, ropes and fishing lures, have been recycled or made into jewelry. Fishing nets inspired a knotted float and the shapes of sails were found in wrapped skirts. Technical equipment for marine life was also influential, notably in the form of a lifejacket-like vest that inflated like a peplum.

Nying achieved a “wet look” in a variety of intriguing ways. Crinkled, airy sweaters were made from a mix of silk and metal threads, and a cropped white nylon jacket was washed and shrunk to create a clinging effect. There was a requisite sailor stripe created through shadow-like transparencies on a reflective knit. The classic sailor shirt with flap collar has been transformed into a loose, high-breasted blazer with a “drop collar”. Building on the Mediterranean theme, a few feminine looks follow the curvaceous silhouette of the “bella figura,” but deconstruct the Olympian way. Ingeniously, a floaty skirt tied at the waist was essentially an oversized t-shirt and could be worn as one. Likewise, a go-to bathrobe coat could be worn inside out.

The imaginary fishing village of Nying is apparently sunburned, as the models had artificial sunburns. Their wet appearance could represent sweat as easily as ocean water; in fact, the glass suggested the former. The intention, Nying said, was to create the feeling of being “inside a bubble or inside a terminal.” I wanted to leave it a little open; it could be that you were coming from a very hot and dreamy place, but I still wanted to feel like you had missed the plane to this dreamy place and were in an airport terminal or something like that. There was something dreamy about this whole scenario, which bordered on the surreal. This aspect of the spring range was captured in two surprising accessories. Referencing Donald Duck’s fishing misadventures, where the catch is not a fish but an old shoe, there was a “falling apart consultant” shoe that looked like a Tom Rath-style business shoe, which could be worn as a slip-on shoe. The sunken treasure of the collection was a faceless silver watch. By breaking with Dalí, Nying’s watch wasn’t melting: instead, time was suspended and gratification delayed – at least until this collection landed in stores.