Sies Marjan A/W 2020 New York Fashion Week Women’s

Scene setting: The vacant 54th floor of One Manhattan West, a recently completed skyscraper designed by SOM, located just shy of Hudson Yards, offered up incredible 360 degree views of New York City as the setting for Sies Marjan A/W 2020 collection. It was an appropriate, juxtapository lens to view designer Sander Lak's 10th runway collection, especially since Lak drew inspiration from Rem Koolhaas' upcoming exhibition Countryside, The Future, which opens at the Guggenheim Museum next week.

Mood board: The Koolhaas/AMO exhibition, which explores the urgent environmental, political and socioeconomic issues faced by remote, wild and rural areas known collectively as the countryside, prompted Lak to focus on traditional craftsmanship this season. Ranging from Guernsey knits that have been hand-finished by a family-owned factory to using authentic Donegal yarn spun by a mill dating back to the 1920s, several artisans were roped into creating the fabrics on display.

Team work: The heirloom quality of the label's new offerings reached especially great heights with one particular collaboration with the visual artist Diana Scherer. Scherer, who has developed a biological technique to control the growth of plant roots to turn a natural root system into textiles, created custom textiles for the label, which resemble felted wool rippled with thread-like roots. Complemented by prints created by contact dyeing locally found foliage, made in collaboration with Cornell University, and applied to oversized workwear and utilitarian silhouettes, the result was a collection equally rooted in the past and future — making it Lak's most sophisticated effort yet.