Willy Chavarria and Omar Apollo on Faith and Heartbreak
nytimes.comThree days after his fall 2023 runway show in February, while on his way to meet Omar Apollo at a photographer’s house in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, the 55-year-old fashion designer Willy Chavarria studied the 25-year-old musician’s Wikipedia page.
What Chavarria lacked in detailed knowledge about Apollo’s career, he made up for with an immediate paternal tenderness. Each detail Apollo revealed about himself during their afternoon together — from his recent Grammy nomination for best new artist to his middle name, Apolonio (also the title of his 2020 mixtape) — drew “oohs” and “aahs” from Chavarria, a senior vice president at Calvin Klein and the founder of his own namesake line.
Apollo, a native of Lake Station, Ind., who first found success on Spotify, was more familiar with Chavarria, whose garments — chinos with exaggerated proportions, mourning gowns reimagined as nylon sportswear — reflect the soulful romance of Apollo’s own falsetto-inflected songs. “And on all-Latino models,” Apollo says. “We don’t often see that.” For the presentation of his religiously ornate spring 2023 collection, at Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church this past September, Chavarria exclusively featured models of color in lush fabrics and dramatic silhouettes.
A few days later, Apollo would perform his music, a mix of Latin-infused soul and R&B, on a North American tour as SZA’s opening act; Chavarria hadn’t yet come down from his triumphant fall 2023 show, staged at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which had awarded him the 2022 National Design Award for fashion.
