Don’t call it dissonance. Looking to the Chinese concept of Liang Yi, this chaotic-yet-mostly-cohesive collection from Feng Chen Wang was all about finding balance and harmony in extremes. “Liang Yi is like yin and yang, but on a higher, deeper level,” explained Wang backstage. “It’s about two different personas and two forces, but they come together in a very peaceful way. You can go quiet or you can go crazy!”
In practice that meant exploring the formulaic codes of prep or the buttoned-up elegance of tailoring (the quiet), and teasing out a new side of them with wild animal prints, giant fur muffs and capes, and some pretty wacky layering (the crazy). Structured black suiting was decorated with lines of loose black threads that recalled pinstripes and gave the garments a raw, dégradé feel, while knitted cardigans were distressed or spliced with nylon pockets to toughen them up.
Clashing snake, leopard and cheetah prints came together with fur accents, a primal roar against the preppier neckties, shirting and tailoring that made the backbone of the collection. Particularly cool up close were the hand-painted denim pieces that had rainbows of metallic oil-slick coating, achieved through a balance of natural and chemical dyeing. “It’s never 100% one or the other,” said Wang.
It was a collection full of interesting proposals that, in the menswear, mostly hit the mark. Oh, and it came with dogs, whose model owners walked them down the runway, in another detail that Wang said was a way to break down boundaries—this time between man and beast. It certainly softened the poseur pouts on the front row into smiles. And if their fast-wagging tails were any indication, these canine models were extremely excited to be making their runway debuts. Catwalk who?
