Alexander Wang has entered the era of his heritage brands. First launched in 2009, the Rocco bag is the comeback star of his latest collection. “When people asked me about the Rocco again, I said: ‘Are we really there yet? Are we back?’” Wang recalled during a visit to the showroom. “I felt like it was literally yesterday when I thought, ‘There’s too much Rocco,’ we have to clean up.”
As it turns out, Wang’s Rocco revival is coming right on schedule. Fashion-conscious young people are moving fast and, having embraced the Y2K trend, are now turning their attention to the 2010s, as the very online among us have noted. “They weren’t there in the first round,” Wang continued. “They dig deeper into the depths of the internet. I couldn’t believe it, but I started getting texts from people asking me to make it again.” While the original gave off a sloppy ‘model-off-duty’ vibe, the new one’s aerodynamics come from the high-frequency printing techniques used to create it.
The early 2010s were Wang’s golden years, if that term can be used for a designer who is not yet forty. He had opened his first store in New York and had not yet been appointed creative director at Balenciaga, and he was in the process of defining his design language: the deconstructed tailoring, the underwear as outerwear, and the leather and denim that made his brand more widely known than all his New York contemporaries.
Those who witnessed Wang’s rise may shudder at the idea that his pre-Instagram collections could be classified as vintage these days, but the designer himself is looking happily ahead. He just returned from a listening tour in China, where he opened about 15 stores in the past year. It was his first time in the country since the pandemic, and the feedback he kept hearing from customers was the need for versatility.
That translated into Dickies-style chinos, designed with hidden elastic waistbands so they can be worn high or low; and styling devices such as boxer briefs that can be pulled on like a belt, to create the look of bare underwear without the bulk. For fun, he designed a photo print of coins that appeared on an oversized shirt. Buttons on denim jackets and denim shirts also looked like nickels and dimes, although Wang made it clear that they are not real U.S. currency.
Wang’s store expansion continues apace in North America. Toronto and Miami are scheduled to open by the end of the year, and Las Vegas and Vancouver are scheduled for early 2024.
