Art Media Men’s Fashion New York Fashion Week
September 4th, 2008 10:00 AM

Hot Pursuit | Joy Riding with Adam Kimmel

By Alex Hawgood

With the impending claustrophobia and frivolity of New York Fashion Week only hours away, sometimes you just need to get away from it all. No one understands this better than the designer Adam Kimmel who, despite his reputation as a darling of the New York men’s wear scene, prefers the rugged nature of California skate culture to the straight-and-narrow catwalk. A collaboration between Kimmel and the Sonoma-based artist (and pal of the designer) Ari Marcopoulos, “Claremont” (above) is a must-see exercise in stomach-dropping exhibitionism. While the swashbuckling stuntmen Noah Sakamoto and Patrick Rizzo are dressed in Kimmel’s baby-blue suits for Spring ‘09 — apparently, the best way to bomb an open road is with a ’70s open collar —

this ten minute movie is less about the threads and more about the mind-boggling joy of watching a bearded guy in a suit doing 60 down a highway on a skateboard with more grace than any model wobbling down a runway in a pair of six-inch heels.