Right Now: Carl Jan Cruz

For several seasons, over three or four years, we watched from afar as Carl Jan Cruz built beautifully singular collections that took ideas about tailoring, proportion, and material somewhere new while expressing something deeply familiar, too. Elements of tradition and craft, rooted in his native Philippines, are by turns overt, abstract, and nuanced. When you hear that he studied menswear at London College of Fashion and spent time at Phoebe Philo’s Celine before launching his own brand and returning home to Manila, the direction, the vibe, the aesthetic all sort of lock into place. As Carl’s island nation (where all...