in this regard Huishan Zhang delivers. The designer said tonight’s collection was inspired by the “dark romance” of Wong Kar-wai’s oeuvre – and there was certainly plenty of darkness and provocation in the high-shine leather and Swarovski-etched mesh dresses. There was also overt luxury in the richness of Zhang’s embroideries and the heaped fringes of pearlescent beads that lined hems and ran in jostling, rustling chevrons from shoulder to chest. Plain silk suiting played against iridescent dipped rainbow sequin and spray-colored floral lace evening dresses in a collection that it would be fruitless to over-intellectualize.
Sure, both Dior and Chanel sometimes had inspirational cameo roles at least as marked as Kar-wai’s – as did the Cheongsam, whose neckline in Swarovski mesh was the recurring motif of this collection. Sometimes – notably in looks that layered a one-shouldered silk external boob-tube hung with pearls over fil coupe ornament – Zhang’s garments looked double-wrapped and de trop: but that’s subjective. What’s not is that this designer has found a client-base that responds to his particular brand of finely applied lushness. Many of them attended this show, and seemed enraptured – the buyers that were seated alongside them should expect more four-figure goodness come delivery o’clock.
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