“That is the one present in Shanghai the place you’ll see some sizzling boys,” joked a good friend at Ximon Lee, the final runway presentation on the Shanghai collections. “You’ll see fairly women and traditional Chinese language Tai Tai’s [a colloquial term for a wealthy, married lady], these sorts of fashions, however solely right here you’ll get sizzling males!”
The venue for Lee’s steamy procession of smoke-shows was the smokier Shanghai membership Heim, which reopened at a brand new location earlier this 12 months. For the uninitiated, Lee is a Chinese language born Korean, Berlin-based menswear designer who launched his label in Brooklyn in 2014 after research at Parsons. He was shortlisted for the 2015 LVMH Prize and was the primary menswear designer to win the H&M Design Award that very same 12 months. Lee has a justifiable share of well-earned clout, however has for years moved comparatively subtly, shrouded by the cavernous membership tradition environment that has lengthy knowledgeable his garments.
This assortment, Lee mentioned backstage, was loosely impressed by the approaching of age tales within the Japanese cult movie All About Lily Chou Chou. He ruminated on the thought of non-public metamorphosis, and appeared to embrace the tensions of being younger—feeling invincible, creating a way of nostalgia, the stress of potential—by developing a group that projected some endearing awkwardness.
If none of this sounds significantly attractive or like a wardrobe ripe for get together, it’s as a result of Lee’s main preoccupation isn’t intercourse enchantment, and neither is the membership. Some issues come naturally, although, so his proposal was stuffed with cheeky and undeniably cool menswear types: micro shorts, one-shoulder draped tops or embellished tank tops, shiny shirting, and a pair of satiny boxer shorts {that a} fellow attendee reported characteristic a built-in jockstrap. A run of novel and funky button-downs had been essentially the most compelling: The brief sleeves on one had been really costume shirt cuffs, whereas one other’s had been knitted to longer panels to create full-length sleeves.
This present marked Lee’s return to the runway in Shanghai. “This season has been difficult however it felt significant to do a present as a result of I wish to really feel proud,” he mentioned. Lee had been displaying his assortment through lookbook and in showrooms. Whereas it’s good to have the ability to see his work up shut—don’t let the barely-thereness of Lee’s clothes idiot you, he’s fairly the deft technical designer—these garments are all finest skilled in context.
The after-party that adopted the present happened in the identical location: Between the techno faithfuls stomping in place the place the makeshift runway had been earlier and the style crowd gathering outdoors to catch up on the tail-end of an extended and eventful season, it was an opportunity to bear witness to Lee’s model of metropolitan, rave-ready sexiness in full throttle.
