Justin Cassin: Greenwich Noir
At St. John's Church in Tyburnia, Gothic revival architecture played host to a different kind of devotion. Beneath stained glass windows and gilded walls, Justin Cassin's A/W 2025 collection unfolded like a visual narrative of New York's Greenwich Village after dark—where the sacred and profane of urban nightlife find common ground.
The historic church's ornate backdrop, with its amber-toned mosaics, created a visual dialogue with Cassin's collection, each piece reflecting and absorbing light in deliberate conversation with the space. Light captured moments of textile drama: a silver metallic jacket shimmered like liquid mercury under the church's warm illumination, creating a photographic moment where past and future visually collided.
"I wanted to capture those introspective moments walking through the Village at night, where you find yourself caught between the history and the energy of now," explained Cassin, whose transformative time in New York has infused his work with a distinctly American urban sensibility filtered through his signature tailoring.
The standout look—a precisely cut black jacket sliced with neon pink zippers—captured the collection's essence. When photographed, the fluorescent lines sliced through the darkness like Greenwich Village's neon-lit streets captured in long exposure. This visual tension continued with a floral-patterned black blazer worn open to the navel, creating shadow play against skin that translated beautifully through the lens.
Most striking was Cassin's ability to frame the male form through stark contrasts. A black and white chevron-patterned blazer created angular shadows that photographers in the front row scrambled to capture, while a cropped black jacket with metal hardware drew the eye to the interplay of fabric and flesh —a silhouette that read as powerfully in photographs as it did in person.
Cassin's commitment to modern tailoring manifested in sculptural black garments against which moments of orange, pink and metallic silver created visual punctuation. This restrained palette made each flash of color register like a light trail in a night photograph of city streets.
As models traversed the ancient stone floor, their paths illuminated by strategic lighting, photographers captured the collection's most compelling visual narrative: how these garments both absorbed and reflected light. The black leather jacket with orange circular motifs, created a photographic focal point that pulled the eye through the frame, while the mirror-like quality of the silver bomber created photographs that seemed to contain their own light source.
Cassin's Greenwich Village influence revealed itself not in literal interpretation but in the collection's play with light and shadow, structure and fluidity—visual elements that translate powerfully to the printed page. Like the neighborhood that inspired it, the collection rewarded those willing to look more closely, revealing layers of detail that the camera loves.
In this sacred space transformed by fashion's presence, Cassin's vision of urban nightlife emerged not as contradiction but continuation—a visual testament to how personal memory transforms into universal image.
Article by Aaayush Anima Aggarwal, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Photography by Ben Montgomery
Tearsheets by Robin Chou, Graphic Design Intern, PhotoBook Magazine
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