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NEW YORK \u2014 The first models to open the show at Puppets and Puppets were dozens of one-foot-tall plush animatronic dancing cats, rabbits, pandas, raccoons and reindeer. They lined the runway \u2014 in a slightly grimy multipurpose space behind a Catholic church in the East Village \u2014 as guests walked in. And yes, they were modeling. Some of the cats clutched miniature versions of the purse that made the brand famous: a <\/b>prim handbag with a fake but real-looking chocolate chip cookie where a logo would ordinarily be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Puppets and Puppets \u2014 the art-school, cool-kid brand co-founded by Carly Mark \u2014 is messing with you.<\/p>\n
A saxophonist who ordinarily busks on the subway sounded the opening notes of George Michael\u2019s cornball hit \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d as the models walked across the linoleum floor. A handle for one of the bags was an oversized spoon. Some dresses had a train in the front, which the models carried in their teeth. One model walked the runway with a faux banana, aging and brown-spotted, slung on leather straps as if it were a cross-body purse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Not everyone gets the joke. Puppets\u2019 work is the type of thing that always inspires \u201cThis is fashion?\u201d comments from people who think fashion should be lovely. The thing is: Puppets and Puppets is also lovely. Some of the looks are shimmery cocktail dresses that would look appropriate at the Grammys or an elegant wedding. Humor is dependent on context. <\/b>Carly <\/b>Mark is the puppet master, and she\u2019s pulling the strings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI\u2019m laughing at you,\u201d says Mark, \u201cbut you\u2019re in on the joke.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
M<\/span>ark moved to New York from Detroit in the mid-2000s to attend the School of Visual Arts. She made paintings of Haribo gummy bear bags and sculptures of sex toys. But mostly she floundered around, wondering why living her dream of becoming an artist felt so unfulfilling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI spent a decade,\u201d she says, \u201cmaybe even a little bit more, engaged in the art world in this almost like clenching-my-fist type of way, being like, \u2018I\u2019m going to figure this out. I\u2019m going to do it. I\u2019m going to be successful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
As an art piece, she <\/b>decided to make a selection of costumes, inspired by consumerism, with Ayla Argentina, who would become a Puppets and Puppets co-founder (and is no longer involved in the brand). The pieces were clownish and a bit grotesque: an overstuffed birthday cake, a half-man-half-tiger in a powder blue suit, a sexy Haribo bear. People told her that she should consider making more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI was just like, \u2018If this goes well, great, I\u2019ll keep going,\u2019\u201d Mark says. \u201cIf not, I\u2019ll write it off as an art piece.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
She did not have to write it off as an art piece. The first Puppets and Puppets collection debuted in 2019. The clothing from her first few shows \u2014 where models walked the runway in harlequin clown-inspired suits, or egg carton shoes made from plastic foam, or a see-through bodysuit affixed with the type of gold angel wings you might see on a kid\u2019s Halloween costume \u2014 never went into wider commercial production. But buyers began to ask, and that became its own challenge: How do you turn a jokey art project into an actual business?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot since I started almost five years ago, but I can\u2019t sew,\u201d says Mark. \u201cI can\u2019t make anything for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Mark had to find employees who understand the production side of the business, which has not yet turned a profit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI just start asking around,\u201d Mark says. \u201c\u2018Hey, I really need help sourcing fabrics.\u2019 \u2018Hey, I really need help understanding how to budget.\u2019 \u2018I really need help building a financial plan.\u2019 And if you just keep asking people, eventually someone shows up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Bergdorf Goodman and Ssense are now among the retailers that carry Puppets clothes, which sell for between $200 (for a T-shirt) and around $2,000 (for an evening gown).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The cookie bag ($545) has become the brand\u2019s most recognizable symbol. It\u2019s chic and goofy. The centerpiece is a hyper-realistic resin sculpture of a cookie, with glossy chocolate chips and the wrinkles you\u2019d find in a homemade batch. It\u2019s not just a joke, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cYeah, it is this cute thing, it\u2019s a cookie on a bag,\u201d Mark says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve also kind of tricked you because it\u2019s a fake fake. \u2026 It\u2019s talking about logos and it\u2019s talking about handbags and it\u2019s talking about fashion in this very actually cerebral way. \u2026 It\u2019s actually kind of like a punk object. Like, there is something kind of gothic style about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Sharp. Witty. Thoughtful. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
There are other variations on the bag, with roses, a banana, a fried egg, and \u2014 in the newest collection \u2014 a spider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI think of [the bags] in a sculptural way,\u201d she says. <\/b>\u201cI think of them in a cinematic way. I think of them in terms of how I used to decide to make a painting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
P<\/span>uppets and Puppets is named after Mark\u2019s beloved Chihuahua, Puppet, but it\u2019s a name with multiple layers. Models are puppets that designers manipulate, and consumers are, too. The term puppet master \u2014 which the brand has emblazoned on shirts, and Mark has tattooed on her body \u2014 is a reference to a character in the film \u201cGhost in the Shell,\u201d and she likes the duality of how it can represent something playful and also sinister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Playful and sinister can describe Mark\u2019s work, too. She frequently references horror films. There\u2019s a lot of gothy black. And there are visual jokes, like the time Mark sent a model down the runway in a bra designed to look as if there were two sunny-side-up eggs covering her breasts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cCarly is curious, twisted, laser-focused, hilarious, unfussy, nerdy, and also just super hot,\u201d says the singer Caroline Polachek, a friend, <\/b>via email. \u201cShe\u2019s not interested in being cool, which of course makes her actually cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Lately, the brand has been experimenting with prints that come from AI-generated images, which also came from a joke. During a meeting, an assistant asked who would be making a line of their T-shirts, referencing a company that was a potential partner. But Mark replied with absurdist humor: \u201cI was like, \u2018It\u2019s my boyfriend. He lives in his basement with his parents. He makes our T-shirts and he loves metal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
For fun, they fed the prompt \u201cBasement New Jersey metal boyfriends living with parents\u201d into Midjourney, <\/b>an AI program, which generated a print Mark loved: a selection of long-haired, bearded, middle-aged guys in skull T-shirts standing in their unkempt basements, with walls covered in metal posters. <\/b>It appears on several pieces this season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really amazing to be able to see something in your head,\u201d she says, \u201cand verbalize that to a computer, and they spit it back out at you, but in a very dreamlike state.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
That dreamlike state carried over into the show, where a confluence of characters were waiting to see what Puppets came up with for its spring\/summer season. In one corner, the filmmaker Miranda July was making a fake sponsored video post for Gorton\u2019s fish sticks. In another, Rebecca Black \u2014 remember that viral song \u201cFriday?\u201d<\/a> \u2014 vamped for photos in a black gown. Consider the vast gap in coolness between Ella Emhoff, talking to friends with dyed-pink eyebrows and neon green skateboards, and her hovering Secret Service protection, who tried to blend in as much as possible by wearing <\/b>a polo shirt <\/b>\u2014 which actually stuck out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Actress Julia Fox, wearing a snakeskin jumpsuit in the front row, praised Mark as a \u201cvisionary.\u201d Up by the top of the runway, actress Tallulah Willis (daughter of Bruce) and model Alana Hadid (sister of Gigi and Bella) were chatting with Instagram-famous fashion dog Tika the Iggy, an Italian greyhound, and her human, Thomas Shapiro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Puppets has \u201cexcitement and whimsy,\u201d says Hadid. When she walked in and saw the animatronic animals, \u201cI was like, hell, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Models stomped the runway in sequiny dresses and extra-wide-legged pants with hoodies. One dress featured a picture of a unicorn \u2014 not the cute, rainbow, sparkly kind, but the creepy, medieval kind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
After the models took their final walk, Mark emerged from backstage in a T-shirt with her AI metalhead boyfriend print. The applause was rapturous. In this audience, everyone got the joke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
correction<\/p>\n
A previous version of this article incorrectly reported that Ayla Argentina is still involved in Puppets and Puppets. The article has been corrected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
More Style stories on fashion<\/p>\n
<\/label><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 The first models to open the show at Puppets and Puppets were dozens of one-foot-tall plush animatronic dancing cats, rabbits, pandas, raccoons and reindeer. They lined the runway \u2014 in a slightly grimy multipurpose space behind a Catholic church in the East Village \u2014 as guests walked in. And yes, they were modeling. Some of the cats clutched miniature versions of the purse that made the brand famous: a <\/b>prim handbag with a fake but real-looking chocolate chip cookie where a logo would ordinarily be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Puppets and Puppets \u2014 the art-school, cool-kid brand co-founded by Carly Mark \u2014 is messing with you.<\/p>\n
A saxophonist who ordinarily busks on the subway sounded the opening notes of George Michael\u2019s cornball hit \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d as the models walked across the linoleum floor. A handle for one of the bags was an oversized spoon. Some dresses had a train in the front, which the models carried in their teeth. One model walked the runway with a faux banana, aging and brown-spotted, slung on leather straps as if it were a cross-body purse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Not everyone gets the joke. Puppets\u2019 work is the type of thing that always inspires \u201cThis is fashion?\u201d comments from people who think fashion should be lovely. The thing is: Puppets and Puppets is also lovely. Some of the looks are shimmery cocktail dresses that would look appropriate at the Grammys or an elegant wedding. Humor is dependent on context. <\/b>Carly <\/b>Mark is the puppet master, and she\u2019s pulling the strings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI\u2019m laughing at you,\u201d says Mark, \u201cbut you\u2019re in on the joke.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
M<\/span>ark moved to New York from Detroit in the mid-2000s to attend the School of Visual Arts. She made paintings of Haribo gummy bear bags and sculptures of sex toys. But mostly she floundered around, wondering why living her dream of becoming an artist felt so unfulfilling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI spent a decade,\u201d she says, \u201cmaybe even a little bit more, engaged in the art world in this almost like clenching-my-fist type of way, being like, \u2018I\u2019m going to figure this out. I\u2019m going to do it. I\u2019m going to be successful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
As an art piece, she <\/b>decided to make a selection of costumes, inspired by consumerism, with Ayla Argentina, who would become a Puppets and Puppets co-founder (and is no longer involved in the brand). The pieces were clownish and a bit grotesque: an overstuffed birthday cake, a half-man-half-tiger in a powder blue suit, a sexy Haribo bear. People told her that she should consider making more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI was just like, \u2018If this goes well, great, I\u2019ll keep going,\u2019\u201d Mark says. \u201cIf not, I\u2019ll write it off as an art piece.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
She did not have to write it off as an art piece. The first Puppets and Puppets collection debuted in 2019. The clothing from her first few shows \u2014 where models walked the runway in harlequin clown-inspired suits, or egg carton shoes made from plastic foam, or a see-through bodysuit affixed with the type of gold angel wings you might see on a kid\u2019s Halloween costume \u2014 never went into wider commercial production. But buyers began to ask, and that became its own challenge: How do you turn a jokey art project into an actual business?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot since I started almost five years ago, but I can\u2019t sew,\u201d says Mark. \u201cI can\u2019t make anything for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Mark had to find employees who understand the production side of the business, which has not yet turned a profit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI just start asking around,\u201d Mark says. \u201c\u2018Hey, I really need help sourcing fabrics.\u2019 \u2018Hey, I really need help understanding how to budget.\u2019 \u2018I really need help building a financial plan.\u2019 And if you just keep asking people, eventually someone shows up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Bergdorf Goodman and Ssense are now among the retailers that carry Puppets clothes, which sell for between $200 (for a T-shirt) and around $2,000 (for an evening gown).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The cookie bag ($545) has become the brand\u2019s most recognizable symbol. It\u2019s chic and goofy. The centerpiece is a hyper-realistic resin sculpture of a cookie, with glossy chocolate chips and the wrinkles you\u2019d find in a homemade batch. It\u2019s not just a joke, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cYeah, it is this cute thing, it\u2019s a cookie on a bag,\u201d Mark says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve also kind of tricked you because it\u2019s a fake fake. \u2026 It\u2019s talking about logos and it\u2019s talking about handbags and it\u2019s talking about fashion in this very actually cerebral way. \u2026 It\u2019s actually kind of like a punk object. Like, there is something kind of gothic style about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Sharp. Witty. Thoughtful. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
There are other variations on the bag, with roses, a banana, a fried egg, and \u2014 in the newest collection \u2014 a spider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cI think of [the bags] in a sculptural way,\u201d she says. <\/b>\u201cI think of them in a cinematic way. I think of them in terms of how I used to decide to make a painting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
P<\/span>uppets and Puppets is named after Mark\u2019s beloved Chihuahua, Puppet, but it\u2019s a name with multiple layers. Models are puppets that designers manipulate, and consumers are, too. The term puppet master \u2014 which the brand has emblazoned on shirts, and Mark has tattooed on her body \u2014 is a reference to a character in the film \u201cGhost in the Shell,\u201d and she likes the duality of how it can represent something playful and also sinister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Playful and sinister can describe Mark\u2019s work, too. She frequently references horror films. There\u2019s a lot of gothy black. And there are visual jokes, like the time Mark sent a model down the runway in a bra designed to look as if there were two sunny-side-up eggs covering her breasts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cCarly is curious, twisted, laser-focused, hilarious, unfussy, nerdy, and also just super hot,\u201d says the singer Caroline Polachek, a friend, <\/b>via email. \u201cShe\u2019s not interested in being cool, which of course makes her actually cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Lately, the brand has been experimenting with prints that come from AI-generated images, which also came from a joke. During a meeting, an assistant asked who would be making a line of their T-shirts, referencing a company that was a potential partner. But Mark replied with absurdist humor: \u201cI was like, \u2018It\u2019s my boyfriend. He lives in his basement with his parents. He makes our T-shirts and he loves metal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
For fun, they fed the prompt \u201cBasement New Jersey metal boyfriends living with parents\u201d into Midjourney, <\/b>an AI program, which generated a print Mark loved: a selection of long-haired, bearded, middle-aged guys in skull T-shirts standing in their unkempt basements, with walls covered in metal posters. <\/b>It appears on several pieces this season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really amazing to be able to see something in your head,\u201d she says, \u201cand verbalize that to a computer, and they spit it back out at you, but in a very dreamlike state.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
That dreamlike state carried over into the show, where a confluence of characters were waiting to see what Puppets came up with for its spring\/summer season. In one corner, the filmmaker Miranda July was making a fake sponsored video post for Gorton\u2019s fish sticks. In another, Rebecca Black \u2014 remember that viral song \u201cFriday?\u201d<\/a> \u2014 vamped for photos in a black gown. Consider the vast gap in coolness between Ella Emhoff, talking to friends with dyed-pink eyebrows and neon green skateboards, and her hovering Secret Service protection, who tried to blend in as much as possible by wearing <\/b>a polo shirt <\/b>\u2014 which actually stuck out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Actress Julia Fox, wearing a snakeskin jumpsuit in the front row, praised Mark as a \u201cvisionary.\u201d Up by the top of the runway, actress Tallulah Willis (daughter of Bruce) and model Alana Hadid (sister of Gigi and Bella) were chatting with Instagram-famous fashion dog Tika the Iggy, an Italian greyhound, and her human, Thomas Shapiro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Puppets has \u201cexcitement and whimsy,\u201d says Hadid. When she walked in and saw the animatronic animals, \u201cI was like, hell, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Models stomped the runway in sequiny dresses and extra-wide-legged pants with hoodies. One dress featured a picture of a unicorn \u2014 not the cute, rainbow, sparkly kind, but the creepy, medieval kind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
After the models took their final walk, Mark emerged from backstage in a T-shirt with her AI metalhead boyfriend print. The applause was rapturous. In this audience, everyone got the joke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
correction<\/p>\n
A previous version of this article incorrectly reported that Ayla Argentina is still involved in Puppets and Puppets. The article has been corrected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
More Style stories on fashion<\/p>\n
<\/label><\/div>\n<\/div>\n