What is the similarity between a camera and a garment? As far as Ziggy Chen is concerned, both are marvels of equal complexity that prove an image is much more than its mere constituent pixels or threads.
It’s this kind of layered depth that the veteran designer sought to express in his spring 2024 collection presented in Paris, in which he also explored the idea of spontaneity, be it the way he’d chosen what textiles spoke to him or how the resulting clothes turned out to be versatile, with buttons and panels allowing the wearer to play with their shape.
Through a translator, Chen explained that the starting point had been his personal cache of vintage fabrics from the 1920s to ‘40s, their color having oxidized from their original tones, as well as ancient books. These were scanned and assembled into collages that were then printed onto fabrics.
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Applied to textures roughly woven or silky smooth — depending on whether his designs skewed more male or female, he said — the result had the kind of subtlety that is hard to capture on film.
At first glance, all this may have made the collection feel like a path explored by the designer. But up close, Chen’s work had charm aplenty, with its woven striped designs that were overdyed, printed or reworked in a myriad of manners that made them look and feel handsomely lived in.
That gave them a storied charm that is sure to catch the attention on retail racks.