“Reverie” is Caroline Hu s natural habitat, to the point where she s integrated it into her brand name. For spring, the designer rooted her experimentations in optical illusions and what she called “subverted expectations.”
“I always feel that society has invisible rules, and so I try to break them gently,” the designer said backstage before the show. That meant taking familiar garments like a T-shirt and playfully backing it with a Victorian corset in quilted silk; flipping a shirtdress upside down, placing the collar at the hem, or lifting a skirt’s lining and reworking it into a bodice. Some ideas were straight-up funny, like using socks to create contrasting pink paneling on a shirred minidress with an asymmetrical hem.
Where the concept really landed was in intricate embroidery work. Embellishments on a tailored jacket appeared to dissolve into the fabric. A gray organza dress with minute horizontal pin tucks was embroidered in trompe l’oeil with pink bows. Tiny squares of floral print became pixelated geometric patterns on a sheer column dress with a flounced hem. A standout was a cropped black jacket that, once fully embroidered, the designer decided should be mounted inside out, its stitches forming a flou motif and its finished face secreted away under the jacket’s lining.
“My team made all these flowers, so they didn’t understand. But this way feels more natural and emotional to me,” said Hu. Further along, the designer layered tulle with textiles printed with florals from her own abstract oil paintings, a move that aligns spring’s obsession with blurred motifs and collage-like constructions with a deeply personal mode of expression. To underscore the point, Canadian dancer and choreographer Emma Portner contributed a special performance.
Speaking of dance, one of spring’s undercurrents seems to be sleek footwear that is actually comfortable. Hu’s latest addition to her ongoing collaboration with Adidas is the CLOT Taekwondo by Caroline Hu, which fuses ideas of ballet and martial arts in triple black, soft pink, and off-white colorways. Those kept all the volume and flourishes nicely grounded.
