Every Girl in New York Wants This Skirt Made of Men’s Boxers
If you make a spiral skirt out of men’s underwear, Charli XCX and Chloë Sevigny will wear it. This is not a theory but a fact. New York designer DJ Chappel has created a plaid skirt made of men’s boxers, designed on an asymmetrical hem that makes each one unique—and the girls can't get enough.
Both Charli and Sevigny have indeed worn Chappel's signature piece (and on multiple occasions at that), but before their endorsement, the piece was a IYKYK must-have item among New York’s fashion set. I saw it on guests at Fashion Week back in February and then again in September. These days, I see it all over my Instagram and TikTok feeds, not to mention anywhere I turn in New York.
Two months ago, I decided to finally add the skirt to my wardrobe. It’s hard to step outside in Brooklyn or downtown Manhattan and not have someone comment on it. Mostly, people tell me they’ve been thinking about getting one, too. But what’s most shocking isn’t how much mass appeal the inherently quirky skirt has (it is, after all, made of…men’s boxers) but how quickly it’s been able to turn Dauan Jacari into a name known about town.
Chappel doesn’t have a fashion background; he was actually originally studying dance. When we sit down at Dimes, the Lower East Side restaurant for which the trendy Dimes Square micro-neighborhood is named, I mention how I often see the spiral skirt on those who frequent the area. Chappel is happy to hear that, since he's from the Lower East Side. His goal is to set up shop where he grew up.
But back to where it all started. Chappel told me, “I was always immersed in theater and dance, which is basically where you get to play dress-up and create all these characters. When I got back from school, I started drawing. I was always sketching. I just started making things for myself and taking pictures of them on Instagram. And then it started to turn into me doing shoots with friends and other creatives. And then it started to become a thing where people wanted to wear the clothing, too. And then it just snowballed and snowballed.”
His goal was always to make clothing that people would want to not just wear, but really live in. And that resulted in an interesting development in which clients would buy his spiral skirt and suddenly feel like they were entering into his world. It’s actually how he came to meet his partner and creative director, Ryan Cardoso. “The client became the boyfriend then became the partner. A lot of people have purchased the skirt, and then we started to build this relationship, and then it started to influence some of the things that we do.”
If you scroll down to the beginning of the brand’s Instagram, you’ll see its first campaign, which features Jacari's friends wearing the spiral skirt to walk a dog, or drop off laundry, or take the subway—exactly the kind of clothes-for-daily-life approach that he always envisioned.
When I mention the idea of really wearing something to death, Chappell nods. “We talk about this a lot with our friends,” he says. “It’s not Oh, you don't care for your clothes if there's a rip or a stain, it's more like, Oh, you live in your clothes. It's supposed to age.”
While Chappel and Cardoso are excited about the spiral boxer skirt’s cult following and celebrity endorsements, Cardoso points out that they’re very much looking to the next chapter. “With the age of social media, it is very easy for a brand to become popular for one thing and suddenly, that's all people expect from it. So yes, we do that [skirt], but we also want to create a whole world and we have a story.”
It’s clear from the latest campaign that the brand is moving past the skirt without leaving it behind. Instead, they’re styling it with new pieces like denim pants and jumpsuits and backless dresses.
For the next step, they'll be looking back to the world of dance. Chappel mentions at the moment they’re working on a ballet with pieces from the collection. The idea is to really understand the way the clothing moves.
“In the beginning of the process, it was a lot of you, like, making things," Cardoso says, looking at Chappel. "And then putting it on and dancing in it and just exploring it, shooting it, doing things with it, living in it. You have to feel it in your body…and then feel the change with the whole dress.”
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