Simply over a month in the past, Megan Thee Stallion wore a glance from Jingwei Yin’s spring 2024 assortment for Oude Waag to the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala. “I used to be very shocked and really impressed,” stated Yin over the telephone within the lead as much as his fall present. “She gave extra energy to that outfit, and gave me a brand new dimension to discover various kinds of our bodies.”
Yin is a designer beguiled by the human type. His sinuous, buoyant drapes and regarded cuts are supposed to each conceal and exalt a lady’s form. “The Chinese language market considers Oude Waag an attractive model,” stated the designer, “however within the Western market once you discuss sexiness, it’s extra direct and really simple. My work is about displaying the physique in a really refined means.” OudeWaag is attractive, absolutely, however its sensuality is nuanced and complicated. It hinges much less on uncovering the physique and extra on the strain with which Yin envelops it. This can be a Chinese language designer American patrons ought to pay shut consideration to.
Yin stated that he was pondering of fireworks this season, of their paradoxical nature as an emblem of each unifying celebration and threatening weaponry. “It’s a response to the world, or to myself,” stated Yin. “We now have Chinese language New 12 months in January, and it’s all about celebrations, however alternatively, the market is unpredictable, as is the entire world in the intervening time.” Yin’s resolve, he stated, was to deliver “magnificence and power within the face of inauspicious instances.”
That a lot he delivered in spades. What Yin can do with jersey across the physique is in a category of its personal by way of gravity defiance—see a bit of black cloth long-established within the entrance as a bodysuit and skirt and draped right into a seamless cape within the again, or the best way he swaddled the physique with an overextended sleeve draped right into a maxi wrap gown. However this season he stretched additional, contrasting these wispy, slinky outbursts with explosive winding drapes in heavier metallic supplies and shaggy touches of shearling. His tailor-made jackets remained razor sharp on the shoulders, however he ventured into new territory in his coats. The cocooning wrap silhouettes recalled each Cristóbal Balenciaga and Azzedine Alaïa in reduce and spirit, however seemed totally up to date in proportions and fabrications.
Nonetheless, Yin is most spectacular when he’s at his most refined. A deceptively easy look seems to be a halter shirt styled over a skirt within the entrance, however seems to be a single piece of cloth folded over itself and held collectively by a single seam within the again—equal components magic trick and technical feat. That is the place expertise issues most. Shanghai Trend Week is thrilling for its younger abilities with extravagant concepts and magpie collections, however Yin gives focus and restraint. His counterparts ought to watch him carefully.
