MILAN — Susan Fang’s return to Milan promises to be an emotional one for the Chinese designer, who is set to parade a fall 2025 collection intertwining her family history, Chinese culture, Italian craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology.
“It’s the collection where I’m questioning: how do we pursue happiness?,” she said over Teams, while gearing up for her latest creative effort to be unveiled Sunday as part of Dolce & Gabbana’s ongoing project endorsing young designers. In the role, she follows the likes of London-based Ethiopian designer Feben and Brazilian-born talent Karoline Vitto, as well as Tomo Koizumi, Matty Bovan and Miss Sohee.
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A graduate from Central Saint Martins and shortlisted for the 2019 edition of the LVMH Prize, Fang has been showing as part of the London Fashion Week official calendar since 2022. Supported by the Italian brand, which helped her in the development of the garments and will provide for the entire organization of the event, Fang will stage her first real solo show in Milan, after having taken part in a group showcase organized by Italy’s fashion chamber in the past.
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A Learning Opportunity
During the conversation with WWD, she reiterated how this time offered a greater learning opportunity for her, considering the scale of production and especially from working closely with Dolce & Gabbana’s design team.
Judging by the preview she offered, it seems she looked to make the most out of the experience, leveraging the fashion house’s know-how and access to its archives to experiment with “crafts that we never really did before” and widen the scope of her own brand to new shapes, embellishments and product categories.
Fang said she titled the collection “Air memory” as she showed pictures of her mother and her colorful paintings depicting natural landscapes in vivid hues, mostly nodding to her past as a farmer. “I realized her biggest happiness already happened in her childhood. And I feel like I’m constantly pursuing my dream and happiness but sometimes happiness is already with us,” the designer said.
“Also her dream was to have her own art exhibition, but she has given so much to my brand and her dream has been a bit delayed,” she said about her mother, who has been closely involved in developing unique textile techniques for her daughter’s brand since its launch in 2017.
“So I thought this was an amazing opportunity to showcase her work internationally, in addition to exploring the magic of memory, whether it’s the memory from the Chinese history and culture or [from the] archives of Dolce & Gabbana,” Fang continued.
Hence she integrated her mom’s art in the collection, either as prints or tasking her to hand paint on some garments directly, as seen in a leather jacket recovered from the Italian brand’s archive and tweaked in volume.
Some of her mother’s drawings were recolored to fit within the delicate pastel-hued palette Fang is known for and to blend with the other patterns included in the lineup, which mainly nod to Chinese pottery or botanical elements. These appear under different guises in a charming mix of techniques, ranging from dandelions popping as handmade beaded ornaments to peach blossoms Fang’s engineer husband 3D-printed to create dresses, tops, bralettes and intricate headpieces.
“We want to keep the feeling of craft to kind of send the human energy in [what we do] but we are also open to technology — we just want to embrace it in a warm rather than cold way,” Fang said.
Her First Tailoring
Meanwhile, the Dolce & Gabbana atelier helped the designer to up the artisanal quotient of the collection. For one, it turned farming and floral motifs from her mother’s artworks into rich embroideries and sequined looks based on the Italian brand’s archetypal shapes, including tailoring — a first for Fang’s own label.
Ditto for denim jackets and pants, which the designer said she always wanted to integrate into her lexicon but hadn’t found a strong manufacturer to do so. Here, denim separates were adorned with star-shaped embellishments and appliques that add to the feminine and naïf vibe of the lineup.
The designer additionally took the chance of collaborating with the Italian brand to include lingerie pieces. After having tipped her toes into the category with a tie-up with Victoria’s Secret for her fall 2024 show, Fang reinterpreted Dolce & Gabbana’s retro-inspired signature innerwear through a more delicate filter in sync with the rest of the collection or by applying a silver monogram that the label helped Fang to develop.
In the same spirit, quintessentially Dolce & Gabbana ruched body-con dresses were tempered in their seductiveness by Fang’s painterly motifs. “I remember I bought a Dolce & Gabbana dress for my high school graduation and I was really amazed by the inner structure in the corset it had,” she said about wanting to explore more figure-showing silhouettes this season.
In addition, the two parties joined forces to develop a bag based on the Italian brand’s Miss Sicily hero handbag, as well as footwear ranging from girly sandals with bows on the front and at the ankles — symbolically winking to how Chinese people “tie a knot to remember things” — to embroidered sneakers.
“We’ve done shoe collaborations before but for us this is our official sneaker and the first time making a shoe ourselves,” said Fang, underscoring how the Dolce & Gabbana team “gave us a lot of suggestions to make it cute but also very well made.”
Other fancy accessories the Italian company supported Fang to create span from hair clips and headpieces referencing Imperial Chinese elements to fun flower-shaped sunglasses in Chinese porcelain-inspired turquoise and lilac hues.
“We want to be able to create more and more design products in the future, hopefully. That’s why we really took the opportunity with D&G to do a lot of shoes and accessories,” Fang said. “We constantly look at what we can explore next, how to push ourselves or what is the craft we can improve or try.…I know it’s a step-by-step process and we need to learn how to grow as a business. Collaborations [have] always been an amazing opportunity for us to try different products that we always wanted to design and create in good quality, and also to learn [from other companies’] marketing strategy.”
Fang said the most challenging part in the partnership was to work around the Dolce & Gabbana atelier’s schedule. “I tried to stay organized but they’re so busy and make their best efforts,” she said, surprised that the brand’s main design team was in charge of the project supporting young designers and not a separate one.
The show was originally planned for last September but Fang said it was postponed due to logistics reasons. Although most of the collection was already finalized, the extra time was instrumental to the creation of more pieces, including statement origami-like dresses. Crafted from bouncy layers of colorful organza strips that can be folded flat, these numbers are expected to further express the sense of happiness Fang was looking to imbue in the lineup.
“We want to continue to create designs that can bring positivity because I think throughout this journey of experiencing different cultures, what I learned the most was actually being inspired and accepting other people. This kind of love is the most important: it can spread a lot more kindness and positivity,” she concluded.