Willy Chavarria, fresh-faced and softly spoken, sits alongside me on a velvet sofa in a Covent Garden hotel and rests a hand on my arm as he launches, intensely, into discussing the state of America — his home. The 58-year-old was born in California and is now based in New York, where he runs his eponymous fashion brand, one of the buzziest labels on the planet.
“America is a place where we feel as if the rug is being pulled out from underneath our feet,” he tells me. “It’s funny, we all were very comfortable with democracy and really believed that it was something invincible, and forgot that it’s actually so fragile. Now we’re in a moment of great introspection about what we’re going to do next. Because we have to do something, and I think right now what I’m doing is coming together with anyone else I know who has a voice — musicians, artists, other designers — to build a coalition that is actually able to resist a takeover.”
