It was almost like something from an underground nightclub in the ’90s, but with a coolly accomplished polish about it. “I actually felt very strongly about studying a lot about the ’90s this season. Somehow, I felt it was very connected and very coherent to now.”
Those who’ve been following Hwang’s shows in Paris—he was a recipient of an LVMH prize a couple of years back—will recognize this collection as a progression of the style he’s been building on. He called this season’s collection Omniverse. “It’s kind of a continuous story,” he said, “Because my identity is coming from my multicultural background. And I wanted to kind of explore the randomness of the encounters I’ve had.” Hwang is a South Korean who grew up in Austin, Texas, and then went to London to study at Central Saint Martins. Thrown on his own resources during lockdown, he said he’d started thinking about his college days. “I remember meeting this guy on the first day of school who was wearing a rubber top and a lace skirt and a really strange, enormous, kind of like sneaker,” he said, laughing. “I was in a culture shock, but I wanted to be his friend.”
Perhaps that goes a way to understanding why the vaguely fetishy undercurrent of buckled straps and leather bras crops up in Hwang’s aesthetic—but it’s also filtered through a practice that was honed in his early days of working for Phoebe Philo, who hired him when she was embarking on her first years at Celine. “I was very blessed to join the house and see her amazing approach,” he said. “It was a spectacular time, seeing her natural taste, as well as her understanding of the woman. She’d wear the clothes herself, and then it was all about asking: Is this for the woman or not? “. Sarah Mower for Vogue
