Libertine Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection

The Constitution was a hot topic on the opening day of New York Fashion Week. Bookending Friday was the CFDA/Vogue Fashion for Our Future March and printouts of the actual document on seats at Willy Chavarria. In between, Libertine’s Johnson Hartig exercised his First Amendment rights when he appeared at the end of his show leading a parade of models and holding a sign that read “Save the Garden.” “We’re thrilled to be here in the gardens today doing our part to bring awareness; we’re just hoping it’s not too late,” he said.

The little piece of Eden in question is the Elizabeth Street Garden, which is in danger of being demolished to make way for housing developments. Hartig’s choice of music, Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” with the lyric “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot / With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot” was a stroke of genius in that it referenced the possible fate of the garden and one of two tropical-colored prints, one depicting a swanky California hotel with a Hockney-like pool and the other the New York skyline. These patterns served as a reminder that in bringing his collections from Los Angeles to the Big Apple, Hartig is creating a sort of bridge across America.

Yet it wasn’t building, but growing, that was on Hartig’s agenda, which was hinted at by the seed packets left for each guest. “My earliest memories are gardening with my dad,” said the green-thumbed designer, who has carried on the tradition at his own home. The most direct references to the fruits of the soil were garments with roses of meticulously placed rhinestone appliqués. The season’s ditzy floral print was most effective when further embellished with dimensional lilies of the valley. Less literal was a series of striped pieces that were prettily disrupted through patchworking or embroidery or being turned inside out. These were all tailored garments and had slightly more of a roll-up-your-sleeves feeling—especially when accessorized with a watering can, spade, or wheelbarrow—than many of the other looks that seemed destined for swanky, upscale events.

Among them was a coral-printed caftan shown with coordinating coral-embellished sunnies, and a cropped jacket with dimensional Georgian and Edwardian lover’s eyes. This was shown with shorts and was one of the designer’s new silhouettes, which was developed with the brand’s growing group of younger customers in mind. Ditto the rather glittering jeans and jean jackets that were more glam rock than boho. A cardigan suit in a delicious shade of mango felt ’80s by way of the ’60s, and beautiful caftans had flou and a hostess vibe.

Reading between the lines, it seemed like one of Hartig’s goals was to chase the youth vote, with options that were “fresh, new, and energetic.” A celebration of one’s salad days, in other words. He succeeded in terms of shapes—the shorter jackets were a welcome addition to the lineup—and in invigorating the label’s denim category. Yet the collection would have benefited if it had hewed a bit closer to the philosophy from which the brand takes its name. Beautiful and accomplished as the designs were, they felt collectible rather than high-spirited, unconventional, and free.