Making it through the last six months has been challenging for all brands, but Swaim Hutson might’ve had it harder than most. The Academy New York is his one-man show, and fall 2020 was the first season he’d hooked up with Stella Iishi’s The News showroom to turn what had been a personal passion project into an honest-to-goodness wholesale operation. He took to Instagram last week to celebrate the fact that, despite the pandemic, he was able to produce and ship the collection to 10 stores. And they’re good stores too, like United Arrows and Beams in Japan, which supported him back in his Obedient Sons days. He was at The News this week, presenting his new spring collection, and here’s more good news: There was a live-and-in-person sales appointment taking place.
Tennis, a childhood pursuit of Hutson’s, is the organizing theme behind his spring collection. One check pantsuit was overdyed a tennis ball yellow and there are riffs on on-court attire in the form of a short knit polo dress and elongated tennis skirts in a lightweight suiting wool. He’s also elaborated on his sweatsuit offering; now there are hoodies and crewnecks, pants and shorts. With COVID-19 likely to keep us in our houses and apartments well into 2021, that’s a smart thing. Leather biking shorts are another nod to the way things are now. But tailoring is Hutson’s true love and it’s The Academy’s USP. On that front the most interesting development was an oversized double-breasted jacket long enough to wear with bare legs—and a pair of his tennis bloomers.
