GAWK FASHION

monochrome

Color reflects personality and relays a message, which is why choosing just one color in a look can amplify the message and put the voice of a personality in bold.

Photos Kali Bowden Styling Annie Blay, Sam Berlin, Aanya Singh Models Hawa Soumounou, Bria Huff, Maxwell Boise

STRIPPED: A GUY AND HIS BAGS YIANNI BINIARIS

When he was 16, sneakerhead Yianni Biniaris never expected that in the next four years he would stand next to Misa Hylton during the 2019 New York Fashion Week and present one of his hand-crafted, original handbags to her. Yes, that actually happened. Some carry their business cards made out of cardstock in a briefcase, but Biniaris carries his in the form of a Treeasun label on the custom crossbody he designs and wears.

Biniaris is a sophomore fashion design major in VPA who designs and constructs handbags for his own company, Treeasun. Biniaris offers a custom design process where your bag is the only of its kind—we will never see a stranger walking through the streets of Syracuse with the same custom bag with interior pineapple fabric that Biniaris designed for us at here at Jerk. We may, however, see editor-in-chief Sam Berlin trudging across campus with the pale-yellow Jerk bag secured on her shoulder.

Biniaris’ passion for design results from his high school experience as a sneaker aficionado and his love for drawing. He's a chronic doodler. Any scrap of paper is a blank canvas for a new design sketch. By his senior year of high school, Biniaris combined his interest in drawing and his fondness for sneakers into a new hobby: fashion design. Biniaris’ hobby transformed from sketches on pieces of paper into his livelihood as he started in the fashion design program at SU.

When he first arrived at Syracuse, Biniaris had a vision of designing sneakers and menswear. Within the first week, however, he was thrown into the unfamiliar realm of women’s clothing. As he designed dresses and worked with denim, he wondered if he made the right choice with fashion design. He even considered transferring to a different major, like industrial design.

But during summer 2019, Biniaris created a words by Lauren Cola photo by Kali Bowden

bag that he named the “Cana,” from Americana Manhasset, a luxury shopping center located in his hometown in Long Island. He wanted to create a handbag that looked like it belonged in a luxury store in the shopping center. He posted the bag on his Instagram story, and within hours Biniaris had several offers followers offering to purchase the bag. He sold the “Cana,” quit his temporary job at a sneaker store, and dedicated his summer to making bags. This was the birth of Treeasun.

As one of the few male fashion design students, Biniaris works to prove that he can produce garments that exceed the preconceived notions for male student designers. Biniaris, nominated by Syracuse University, was the only male designer on the trip to the 2019 New York Fashion Week with IMG. Biniaris seizes every opportunity given to work on representing male designers. He is involved with FADS, the Syracuse University Fashion and Design Society and dedicates all his free time to sketching and planning for the next Treeasun launch.

You can check out his work at @treeasun on Instagram. JM