Clothed in Collage | Susan Fang

Every year as Fashion Week runways roll out around the world, my inner designer wakes up as if a child on Christmas morning. Beyond the clothing and production styles, fashion weeks offers a chance at finding something new or revisiting an idea with a new perspective. Colors, proportions, concepts, inspirations – and occasionally a wardrobe desire – are what I’m looking at.

This year, I was wowed by a London-based “new talent”, Susan Fang. After seeing her effervescent designs appear at Milan fashion week, I was immediately drawn to Fang’s sense of creation. To get even more specific, it was her signature technique of air-weaving.

Using a netted, almost “collage” effect, Fang creates pieces that simultaneously float off and define the figure, transcending its wearer while managing not to overwhelm her. The result is entrancing. Both fluid and rigid. Past and present. Structured and ethereal. So jarring is its effect that it even seems alien – I am not even sure her ideas are particularly wearable in a practical sense. Yet, even this question gives the clothing a refreshingly novel edge, an atypical vision of the future of clothing on the body.

How does the designer accessorize these artistic layers? With her effervescent, bubbled creations that look like water droplets, of course! They drape the head, neck, decollage and back, and even cascade off the body in the form of bubble purses. There are also air-washed floral prints that look like pressed flowers beneath the gown. It all exudes innovative femininity. While the clothing is authored by a designer, it feels as if an artist, mathematician and a messenger from the future influenced the collections.

Born in China and raised across the US and Canada, Fang worked for numerous fashion houses like Kei Kagami, Céline and Stella McCartney before launching her own line. Captivated in her work is every assortment of her experience plus her vision.