“That’s just Haizhen Wang, he has always been there and it is always good.” A colleague said this last night, a few hours after Wang presented his spring 2024 collection. That was no exaggeration: the Chinese designer has been doing this for more than a decade, having founded his label in 2011 after graduating with an MA from Central Saint Martins and working at the likes of All Saints and Max Mara. He’s a real tough player here in Shanghai, although his presentation last night marked his return after a few seasons away.
After stopping showing catwalk collections during Shanghai’s 2022 lockdown, Wang returned to the main stage of Shanghai Fashion Week yesterday to thunderous applause. He called the collection “See You Again,” but when asked backstage, instead of waxing poetic about his return, he talked about fashion: “I’ve been thinking about the ’80s a lot,” he said. “You can see it in the shoulder line, the waist and the button placement on the tailoring,” he said. “The flash of fashion in the late 80s and early 90s, when I was studying in Britain, had the most impact on my work at the time.”
That much was clear, but this was no ’80s redux. Instead, Wang modernized the decade’s most recognizable pieces in a lineup based around black and white (“I’m just not that good with color,” he said chuckling). The strong shoulder was balanced by a modern fitted waist and structured hourglass silhouette on jackets, and lightened on cocktail dresses by a concave sleeve construction. Considerably more captivating was his draping, which he showed off beautifully smocked LBDs, going-out tops, a playful silky bustle worn under a corset, and a fabulous Galliano-esque (with a lace of Westwood’s mini-crini) rumpled cloud-like skirt. . The closing dresses were special knockouts: two versions of a diagonally gathered bodice with silk structure, cut into a pair of long-sleeved dresses, one white and one black. They were prim lady and cool It girl in equal doses.
The pandemic caused significant economic and social disruptions across Shanghai last year, and everywhere this season designers, show producers and PRs have touched on its impact and highlighted how difficult it has been for the fashion community to get itself back on track. Wang is one of the designers who seems to embody the resilience of the industry.
