Jeremy Ho and Peter Hu released the first collection under their label Ouer two years ago, and almost immediately, they created a “hero” IYKYK item of sorts among New York City’s fashion cognoscenti. A short-sleeve button-down shirt with an asymmetrical ballooning hem available in a lavender color they call “Ditto” and a butter yellow shade they call “Beancurd.” It is a shirt with a sort of restrained opulence.
“We’ve been working with the idea of using our upbringing as inspiration for the collections; as a way to set the foundation a little bit,” Hu explained recently at their Chinatown showroom. “We started with the idea of expectations—especially the familial or societal expectations of Asian immigrants, or immigrants in general, to achieve something.” In other words, they’re reimagining stereotypically proper American clothes. It’s not deconstruction, per se, because their pieces are immediately identifiable as what they are, but they are imbued with certain flourishes. Consider an olive green field jacket that’s cropped at the hip with a voluminous cape-like inset in the back. “We call it professional drag,” Hu noted.
The designers first met when they were attending business school in Toronto—a year apart. “Jeremy and I were on that path to go to a top school and then have a career in a white collar profession and we just realized that it wasn’t for us.” Hu said. “We felt so out of place over there.” After finishing those degrees they moved to New York, enrolling at Parsons for fashion design. “It was actually very technical, which was really nice,” Hu added. “We didn’t know how to sew [before].” Hu landed jobs at Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, and Tim Coppens, while Ho went to work for Opening Ceremony, Robert Geller, and Thom Browne. When the pandemic hit, it gave them the push they needed to start their own thing, like it did for many other fledgling designers. “We’d been working in the industry for almost 10 years; and we were longing to start our own thing.”
Starting slowly, the duo have been releasing one collection a year. (Ouer means “occasionally” in Mandarin.) The spring 2025 collection, their third, sees the duo expanding. Suit jackets have a traditionally square shoulder line and a boatneck collar, and baseball tees come with contrasting sleeves layered in delicate contrasting sheer jersey. A cotton-nylon faille fabric usually found in ballgowns gets reimagined in a zip-up hoodie with dramatically gathered pockets (and worn with matching cargo shorts); a classic poplin button-down shirt features triangular “pockets” near the collar where it neatly “tucks in,” the way you tuck your collar underneath your sweater neckline. Their experimental bent works because it is always grounded in the matter-of-fact.
“We start with pieces that are very classically American—chinos, polos, hoodies, and army jackets, but they’re distorted in different ways so they’re familiar but not super-real,” Hu explained. It’s that tension that makes their work so modern—and why we’re keeping our eyes on Ouer.
