XIMONLEE unveiled their autumn/winter 2017 collection with a catwalk show for London Fashion Week Men’s in the BFC showspace.
After being the first menswear designer to win the H&M Design Award in 2015, the Berlin-based Chinese-born Korean designer Ximon Lee created the XIMONLEE line. Presented by GQ China as an example of the Chinese menswear brands making it internationally, the collection is the third in what Lee considers “studies”.
The concept for AW17 was “shame”, in Chinese a combination of the symbols for beauty and ugly, and the resulting pieces challenged a perception of what clothing hides versus what it reveals: an abstract leather bra was slung across a bare chest, slit velvet coats promised leg, cutaway sections provided windows to layers beneath, while sheer pearl-encrusted shirts covered the skin yet covered nothing.
Barely-there items contrasted with stiff yet tailored trench coats, layered and draped wool, roll neck knits and prudish high-waisted trousers. A nude figure was woven into bronze and deep red brocade while red and blue struck out against the predominantly autumnal swatch. Wet look hair hung limp on the youthful, polished faces of mannequin-esque models that set off the flamboyant futuristic feel of broad angular shouldered jackets and oversized collars.
It is a challenging collection but behind an ambitious concept, Ximon Lee has developed new, softer wearable edges to his brand’s hard line style.
The V&A has, over recent years, honed the blockbuster fashion retrospective into something of a house speciality. Here, the garments, shoes and jewels of the world’s most covetable wardrobes are presented not as accessories to life, but as artefacts of cultural and aesthetic consequence. Last year, the museum paid tribute to two...
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