Designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla presented Bode Rec.’s first runway collection for Spring 2025, not at New York Fashion Week, but in New Orleans. Bode launched their athletic line last year in collaboration with Nike, but this collection marked their first independent presentation. The brand drew on 200 years of sportswear using waxed canvas from heritage mills, waffle cottons from 19th century thermal wear, and performance fabrics developed in the ‘60s. Bode Aujla told GQ, “The era that I’m really honing in on here is the 1940s through the ‘70s. All the clothing that you might find in someone’s gym bag.”
For Spring 2025, the two-time CFDA American Menswear Designer of the Year paid homage to festival culture in New Orleans and the history of American football, reimagining varsity tropes with elegance and a sense of playfulness. Think tracksuits, mesh jerseys and rugby shorts, all luxuriously reimagined. The timing couldn’t have been more on point, as the show took place in the same city, on the eve before football’s biggest night of the year: the Super Bowl.
Guests were invited inside a restored church with floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, and a large banner reading “Victory Parade” hanging at the back of the room above 15-foot-tall champagne coups. Leon Bridges serenaded the audience, as models paraded down the runway under twinkling aluminum stars reminiscent of a high school prom. Supermodel Lucky Blue Smith opened the show outfitted in a black wool bandleader coat with antique bouillon flowers as buttons. Fringed jackets, pleated skirts, preppy varsity blazers and even a braided shawl-collar robe based on a podium jacket worn by an Olympian in the 1930’s made their way down the runway. Taylor Hill presented the final look, wearing a white feathered cape and carrying a bouquet of white roses like an ethereal prom queen.
Discover the collection below.
