Louis Shengtao Chen has many, many emotions. “This season the lady is getting mad,” the designer stated backstage after his fall 2024 present in Shanghai. “She’s just a little bit loopy, she’s offended!” Like each season, Chen defined, the lady in query is the feminine model of himself. So what’s he offended about?
A looming feeling of instability, the long-term results of the pandemic—which we’re experiencing in actual time now—an business strained by financial uncertainty, your on a regular basis nervousness. TL; DR, simply decide your poison.
All that stated, Chen additionally has many, many concepts. Whereas he was fast to declare that this isn’t a thematic assortment, one may discover a number of widespread threads: There have been some wildlife within the form of rosettes and butterfly and deer prints (the latter of which graced the cowl of Vogue China’s Shanghai Style Week version on a coat); there have been gloriously bouncy, ballooning bustles and panniers and crinolines formed with Chen’s signature irreverence and exacting technical finesse; and there have been riffs on what the designer christened as “streetwear glamour.”
These consisted of demi-couture-ish cropped zip hoodies lined in rose appliques, slouchy tailor-made trousers, ultra-suede shearling vests, mohair maxi clothes with sweeping tentacular hems, and sequin “puffies” worn as gloves or leg heaters, which delivered a chilled ASMR impact on the runway. Balancing these extra informal choices was a run of deliciously tailor-made coats, roomy louche slips, and deftly formed corsets—in case you want proof of how effectively Chen is aware of his means round a girdle, simply check out how he snatched a shearling coat with some satin and some items of boning.
Chen recognized night fabrications as his consolation zone, “what individuals determine as Louis Shengtao Chen,” he stated, and defined that the problem right here was to stretch his perspective to the avenue. “We’re very comfy with doing stuff that may be very romantic, softer, and delightful,” he stated. “This was the primary time we did one thing on this actual juxtaposition with streetwear.” He did so to nice impact. At simply 27 Chen is remarkably self-aware however nonetheless preserves the naiveté that makes his work thrilling.
However what’s it that drives Chen loopy? “I’m at all times loopy about romance!” he exclaimed, to which his publicist quipped in reply: “such a Pisces.” Emotional, delicate, and imaginative but introspective and mental. A duality between fantasy and actuality. Sounds identical to a LouisShengtao Chen assortment.
