Uma Wang worked with an airy hand for spring, citing a desire for lightness and balance, inspired both by rising temperatures and the work of Alexander Calder, famous for his mobiles embracing an element of chance.
That is exactly what Wang did with her designs, allowing the wearer the possibility to manipulate her layered and textured pieces in a multitude of ways.
“The designer and the customer should inspire each other, it’s a dialogue,” said the designer backstage ahead of her show, held in a 19th-century Protestant church, a heady scent of perfume wafting through the space. “Everything about this collection is about balance, about light, about air,” she explained. “This is really a philosophy, not only for fashion, also for ourselves.”
Worked into the open back of a tailored jacket, a fluid silk panel could be styled in a number of ways, lending romanticism and fluidity. The designs reprised motifs and constructions from her fall collection but with more lightweight constructions. A mesh knit sheath dress with a floral jacquard pattern looped and draped around the body like a cocoon, fastened at the neck with a spherical silver brooch and allowed freedom of movement and a range of styling options too.
Wang’s skill with fabric and textural manipulation was no less present in her silhouettes this season, worked with ethereal fabrics like organza, crumpled and splotched linen, or sheer technical fabrics with a gossamer sheen. She draped, twisted and knotted the textiles around the body, creating appealing twists on softly tailored forms and combining floral and check jacquards, fil coupé and Art Nouveau-style prints in a muted color palette veering through shades from ecru and beige to bronze, brown and black.
