Alexander Wang wasn’t on the New York Fashion Week calendar, but that doesn’t mean that the designer or his brand have gone dark. The company recently relocated from Chinatown to a large, bright space at the South Street Seaport. Wang and his team now occupy two floors of the building where Carla Sozzani’s 10 Corso Como outpost used to be. The showroom has views of the Brooklyn Bridge and in signature Wang fashion there are black calla lilies, Byredo Loveless candles, and speakers built into the walls that pump out a rotation of curated playlists at different sound levels depending on the space.
Of this see-now, buy-now spring 2024 collection he said, it’s “really this idea of the concrete jungle.” Thinking about new erogenous zones, he added vertical slits to the front of loose-fitting pants, which is a developing trend also seen at Phoebe Philo and Daniel Lee’s Burberry, where functional zippers allow for adaptability. At Wang, the thigh and shin slits are bought-as-sold, sexy for the youth market they’re aimed at. Exposed underwear is a look he was early to: Scan back to the spring 2018 show he put on on a dead-end street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with cotton briefs peeking out of waistbands and bra tops hybridized with button-downs. Here he showed leather bra tops trimmed in crochet and a bomber-bra top mash-up complete with pockets over the breasts, underwear that for all intents and purposes is now outerwear. On a similar mixed-use wavelength, he developed water-safe denim swimwear—the briefest of bikinis, cropped jean jacket, jeggings-style shorts, etc.—that can be worn directly from the beach to the club.
Does Wang think about rejoining the New York schedule, where he was once one of its bright stars? He has a—gasp—20th anniversary on the horizon, that might be a moment to come back. He doesn’t want to commit, but he did say he’s planning an activation timed to the release of his pre-fall collection. As designers up and down the fashion food chain reconsider the value and importance of fashion shows, a client-first approach might just be the right way to go for Wang. All you have to do is walk around downtown on a summer weekend to know that there are customers for his brand of young, body-positive fashion—lots of them.