Xander Zhou is adept at twisting coming-of-age stories. The frazzled wayward sons (unforgettable faces of today’s youth cast by Madeleine Østlie) that walked his spring/summer 17 show have had a taste from the seedy world of adults only. After seeing plenty of frayed edges, draped and layered Breton jersey, soiled sneakers, and laced-up combat boots — as well as a final oversized coat emblazoned with the words “Right Now” — one can guess the mischief that Zhou’s boys got up to the night before. Sonically, it was amplified by Finn Mactaggart’s industrial punk lullaby for a stone cold clubland.
“For me Grown Ups is a very ritualistic and conceptual line. Once you get past it, there is nothing you can’t do,” Zhou explains. “These lines are often blurred. Instinctively people would feel a lot of it isn’t to be talked about, but they don’t even know why.”
Zhou’s obsession with youth culture has largely informed his work. Like many of his contemporaries, he mixes and matches the codes of streetwear and luxury, in a way that democratizes and rejuvenates the otherwise archaic look of luxury fashion. This is often the work of designers who are also great stylists; Zhou is the Menswear Director of T Magazine China and style confidant to one of China’s biggest pop stars, Chris Lee.
Zhou believes in the passions of free love. They are sex, arousal, porn, uncontrolled, clash, rebellion, which are some of the exact words the designer has laid down as his spring/summer 17 show notes — a romantic ritual he’s kept from last season. So rather than letting his boys grow old, he has decidedly proposed a new adulthood by way of a relentless pursuit of such passions. Youth never ebbs.
Credits
Text Adam Chen
Additional reporting Rianwon
Photgraphy Yi Tuo