Fashion brand Feng Chen Wang unveiled its Spring Summer 2024 Collection, inspired by the designer’s cherished childhood memories of her grandmother, on June 24th, during the recently finished Paris Fashion Week. The memories include strolls through the mountains and along the narrow rivers in Fujian, China, Wang’s birthplace. Using an ancient method of botanical contact printing, the collection seeks to honor and recreate these special memories. Wang worked with local Chinese artisans. She selected her grandmother’s preferred plants, including onions, gallnuts, eucalyptus, and apple leaves. These plants were pounded onto traditional Chinese silk, imprinting the fabric with their hues, shapes, and veins.
SPRING SUMMER 2024 COLLECTIONS
Each plant in the collection symbolizes a remembrance of life and the passing on of tradition. The one-of-a-kind patterns that arise from this process transcend time and space, serving as a dialogue with the past to preserve an eternal love. Wang characterizes the memories as profound but hazy, owing to the influence of her imagination. The creative process elicits a sense of color change with strong emotions, resulting in pieces with pink, blue, purple, and black color gradation. The fabric is dyed with these dreamlike colors, capturing the essence of profoundly rooted memories.
Silk is the predominant fabric utilized in Wang’s collection, which symbolizes natural purity. It appears on blouses, shorts, and jackets made of transparent organza. Denim items and T-shirts in the collection also feature the brand’s signature material, 100 percent cotton. Wool suits with botanical contact printing elevate the collection by demonstrating the painstaking handiwork involved in the dying process. The fusion of Chinese and Western styles, combined with tailored craftsmanship, creates a contemporary aesthetic.
The Memories. Imprinted. collection was presented at the Lycée Montaigne alongside a live performance by the musical group Nara Bara. Wang explains that the collection investigates the boundaries between reality and desire, which reflects the fluidity of her designs. Dragons and phoenixes, romantic love symbols in her grandmother’s eyes, are prominently featured. Through jacquard and water-washing techniques, a new dragon pattern arises in various hues, including denim-blue, grey, and shades of khaki. These mythical creatures represent the fervent ambitions and aspirations of ancient Chinese people and coincide with the Year of the Dragon in China in 2024, evoking optimism for the future.
The collection also includes accessories made with natural materials like bamboo and wood. Bamboo hair clasps, wooden necklaces, and the newly designed eyewear collection by Feng Chen Wang elevate the accessory assortment. In addition, the collection includes reconstructed Nike apparel and footwear, contributing to its multidimensional nature.
The Feng Chen Wang Spring Summer 2024 collection eloquently tells the story of emotional memory preservation and reproduction through its design, craftsmanship, and fabric selections.
Creative Director: Feng Chen Wang
Stylist: Anders Soelvsten Thomsen
Hair Stylist: Yumiko Hikage
Makeup Artist: Tiziana Raimondo
Casting Directors: Oliver Ross, Manon Sassy
Runway Photographer: Giovanni Giannoni
Runway Videographer: Cassian Thomas De Cruz
Backstage Photographer: Luke Paige, Saar Pesach, Jingxiong Qiao,
Tianyi Liu, Natalie Holzknecht, Kenza Chouaita
Backstage Videographer: Alexandre Do
Roving Photographer: Michael Zhao
Live Band: Nara Bara
Music Designer: Ben Brunnemer
Producer: Daniel Hettmann Production
Press Relations: PR Consulting
