Liberal Youth Ministry Imagines a Cartoonish Fashion Future
There are about 19,000 Swarovski crystals on Liberal Youth Ministry’s shredded-up sweatsuit. Radiant pockets of sparkle peek out from rose-colored jersey at the knees and torso, each crystal hand-affixed at the brand’s atelier in Guadalajara, Mexico. Recommended styling is to pair the set with the brand’s crystal-covered knit balaclava and turquoise hood, your entire body swathed in cozy sparkle, looking like a disco ball after a night spinning out.
There are toned down pieces in Antonio Zaragoza and Kenia Filippini’s spring 2022 collection for Liberal Youth Ministry, including acid wash jeans and black hoodies, but in the couple’s eyes, every item has potential for fantasy. That’s partially why they called this collection “It’s a Nice Dream”—and why they have named Fillippini’s spinoff womenswear collection Dream Baby! Liberal Youth Ministry. The onetime hard line between comfy clothes and one-off pieces dissolves in their hands. Every tee, tank, and tracksuit merits careful handiwork and heart.
Zaragoza started Liberal Youth Ministry as a home for rebellious youthful aesthetics in Guadalajara in 2016. Even back then, every item was made in his atelier by a team of 10-or-so. Now with his wife and creative partner Kenia, who’s an alum of the couture ateliers of Montex and Atelier Caraco in Paris, and thanks to an ongoing partnership with the Dover Street Market Paris incubator, the craftsmanship and experimentation here has been dialed up to new levels. Every print of cartoonish scale on triple-face neoprene extra-extra-extra oversize coats and cartoonish Spring Breakers-style face coverings was custom made by Mauricio Orozco.
The comically cute look of this collection might come as a small shock to Liberal Youth Ministry fans like Bad Bunny, Kanye West, and Justin Bieber, who know the brand for a more brooding vibe. But after everything the world has been through this year, Zaragoza says he wanted to telegraph lightness. “Dreams, palaces in the sky, Surrealism,” he said on a Zoom call. “It’s more like an energy, a dream that we are young.”
As far as fit goes, these clothes are positively ginormous body-swallowing things, furthering the glam slouch-wear agenda that has emerged as a popular post-pandemic look. But for a more body conscious style, Filippini’s new womenswear collection offers skater dresses, cropped baby tanks, and patterned leggings.
In the lookbook, the collections are styled together in a chaotic swirl of characters, colors, and prints, models sporting smirking balaclavas to cover their faces. But in life, Liberal Youth Ministry’s pieces are sure to be the standouts in a wardrobe. Just check out Filippini’s pièce de résistance: a whimsical hoodie of monumental scale drowned out in pink bows and a spray of rhinestones. You’ll never blend in—and you’ll never feel the pinch of a tight seam, zipper, or button again.
