Huishan Zhang is going places. Just last month, the London-based designer with the 4-year-old self-titled brand was named one of the winners of the BFC Fashion Trust prize. His workshop in Qingdao, China, now employs 49 people. Building on his hometown’s long tradition of lace-making, he’s developed compelling new ways of handling the material, with technical and pre-waxed treatments that tone down prissiness in favor of a more urban attitude. Worked into a 3-D coat, it’s as pretty as traditional lace, but feels modern—and it travels better.
To that point, Zhang’s Resort collection is called Voyageur and features clothes—lots of dresses, and more separates—that will cater to his society clientele’s lifestyle, for example, with a vertically striped black-and-white lace top that weighs nothing, won’t wrinkle, and lends itself to dressing up or down. His popular knife-pleated sheer trousers returned this season with pewter-like metallic lace. Daywear and day-to-night is a new emphasis, notably with more playful pieces in denim; wide trousers embroidered with silk thread flowers or a crisp jacket and flares embroidered with leaves, branches, and flowers in seed pearls looked like a nod to his country of origin. Elsewhere, a sandy fringed linen top with lacelike embroidery was a winner.
Not that his party girls will feel at a loss. Between a flash of plastic discs over a lace dress and silver sequin stars on a black gown (plus shirred ribbon trim that reprises the symbol for the yuan), there was plenty that was shimmery, shiny, and sheer happening here. But most of all, this season Zhang seems to have pulled off one of the hardest tricks any designer faces: While staying true to his roots, he’s making a place for himself not as a “Chinese designer,” but as an international one.
