After so many digital meetings, it was great to see Feng Chen Wang and her clothes IRL in the Palais de Tokyo. Now she has got back to Europe, she will spend her immediate future reacquainting herself with her Shoreditch studio. This collection was conceived while still in China, and although the clothes themselves were uplifting and attractive, the sentiment behind them was more ambiguous. Over the raucous electronica playing in the space, she said: “The collection is inspired by thoughts of people who are emerging. These are people full of conflicts. Maybe these people are happy or sad, maybe they feel lonely. It is about conflict.”
An oversized black suit, finely tailored, was patterned with a constellation of rings and other pieces of hardware. A pale blue suit, wearable multiple ways through the removal or rearrangement of layers, was cut in subtly contrasting sections of wool and silk. The model in it wore a wide chain collar which—like denim shirts and dresses and a chain veiled baseball cap—emitted the brittle sparkle of Swarovski, who had partnered with Wang on the collection. Some looks, such as a white suit with signature phoenix cut-outs in the sleeves, came less abundantly Swarovski-fied. Sparkle-free too were phoenix relief knitwear for both genders whose decoration was delineated by the play of opaque against solid. Four cool looking outwear pieces produced with Canada Goose, most featuring Italian-style removable liner layers, looked ruggedly pragmatic and came decorated with work by the artist Xu Zhen. There were also some same-collab tactical boots with removable gaiter sections, a group of customized Nikes, and new variations on Wang’s conversation piece bamboo bags.
