Welcome to the Wang Contemporary, a former landmarked bank that designer Alexander Wang and his mother bought last spring and spent the subsequent year refurbishing. Now, the grand, domed building serves as a hybrid gallery and showroom, hovering over Canal Street at the edge of bustling Chinatown. It was there that the designer showed his resort collection, up seven floors in a classic caged elevator, spat out into the moody atmosphere of dark, curtained tableaux populated by mannequins (and just past a space that will soon host private omokase dinners).
Last season, despite a feeling for “opulence,” Wang presented a relatively spare, streamlined collection—fun, youthful, flirty, sexy, even. That interest in the lavish and ornate hasn’t dissipated; in fact, it’s only grown, and this time it was more fully realized, mostly because the designer took his cues from traditional Peking opera and then married it to what he saw as a contemporary wardrobe. So, richly drawn floral motifs in the huaniaohua style were used on draped tops, skirts, and wrapped bandeaus (all edged in fake fur), or high-heeled boots that reached well north of the thigh.
Another theme was silk twill fringe, which densely covered cocooning evening coats with beefy shawl lapels, a floor-length strapless dress with just a hint of an hourglass shape built in, and a mod-ish, straight-line skirt-and-top set. Meanwhile, a tuxedo jacket was reimagined as a sort of mini wrap dress with its vented back elongated into something of a fishtail. It was shown alongside a lustrous two-piece gown, the cropped boxy top inspired by a pillowcase. There was something of the elegant and refined here, a maturity and old-world glamour that one doesn’t always associate with Wang, known for his more casual, cool-girl aesthetic.
Those more familiar threads came through later, when Wang walked through the second half of the collection, titled “Hybrid State,” based on ideas of pre-styled garments with a slight wink. A jean jacket and skirt, for example, were designed to look twisted upside down, while the pre-styled concept came through in a single piece made to look like a camisole over a long-sleeve T-shirt. A pair of dark, roomy trousers with a loose ruffle down the side, a nerdy cardigan spiffed up with an argyle print picked out in crystals, and T-shirts with airbrushed graphics of Peking opera performers with a smattering of sparkle were Wang in his classic, downtown element. They also happened to be some of the more successful pieces in the lineup. “It’s an evolution of the last collection,” Wang said, “and thinking about rituals, traditionalism, these things we haven’t really explored before as a visual language. I wanted to think, ‘How do we approach these?’ I’m always interested in things that feel foreign to us and then bringing it in. Even though these things can look very dressed-up, is there a way we can bring them into the everyday?”
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