On September 13, in a church gymnasium on East 14th Street, 35-year-old Carly Mark, looking like a Bob Fosse dancer in sheer tights pulled over a printed leotard, jogged out after her New York Fashion Week runway show to awe and applause. Though Mark is from Detroit, she’s the rare, real-deal New York designer. She’s been entrenched in the city’s art scene since she moved to Manhattan in the mid-aughts to attend the School of Visual Arts. From model selection to musical guests (her September show opened with music by Jazz Ajilo, a well-known subway sax player), she infuses her brand, Puppets and Puppets, with the strange spirit of the city.
In the world of fashion, Puppets and Puppets is a lodestar, a luxury brand with personality, clever designs, and cultish devotion from people who inspire their own cultish devotion, such as Lena Dunham, Julia Fox, and Richie Shazam. It’s because Mark knows what women want, which is to be like her. “There’s a fandom around brands. That’s what moves clothes,” Mark tells me. “This has to be about me, because when it’s not, the buyers don’t believe it, the customers don’t believe it, and the clothes don’t sell.” She’s cool to the point of being terrifying, and as smart as she is bizarre. “If I don’t like it when I put it on, this isn’t going to work.” She pauses. “I really became the puppet master.”
