Urgent chants of mass protest played over the PA to preface a Xu Zhi show that flirted with a wide range of wearable codes originally fashioned to signal peace, love, and progress. This dense wardrobe of Western dissent drew on the visual languages of the late 1950s through the 1970s, blending Beat, boho, rock, rive gauche, and hippie idealism into a synthesis of luxury sedition.
Chen spoke backstage of creating “an amalgamation of different heroes from that time,” and reactivating their “peace and love energy” for a new generation. However the codes he was collaging have long since been transformed from progressive to nostalgic through the filters of both history and luxury. They were too lushly delivered here ever to seem anything more than recreationally radical.
The opening softly militarized jacket paired with a fringed maxi skirt maybe gently suggested a rebel tension between institutional norms and incitement though alteration. A model in a Lennon cap, brown leather trousers, and a gold buttoned wool tunic jacket was pretty perfectly put together. Leopard prowled insistently through the collection: a mohair cardigan here, a mousseline top there, often set against floaty maxi skirts.
Paisley trenches and waistcoats worn with matching tailored trousers, ruffled blouses, denim biker jackets, leather piped wool cloaks, gold studded embroidered waistcoats, and fringed skirts, and a pretty cool double belted military jacketed full menswear look in what looked like roughly felted burgundy filled out Chen’s crowd. The looks that added most dynamism to his runway were those that felt the least thematically derivative, most especially the hand beaded embroidered dresses in silky viscose that featured arced inserts of fringing: these looked more like statements than quotations.
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