Fashion designer Alexander Wang on his China ambitions
After publicly pulling out of New York Fashion Week, Alexander Wang, the famed Chinese-American fashion designer born in Los Angeles, showed his first Spring / Summer 2019 resort collection on June 3 at New York’s Pier 17.
He said the show, which featured several Chinese models, including supermodel Liu Wen 刘雯, was to honor his Chinese heritage.
“I felt it was very important to represent my culture on a runway in an industry that usually doesn’t have much Chinese representation,” said the 34-year-old designer. “Especially, being an American-born Chinese, you grew up with magazines and pop cultural references that don’t always see Chinese faces of celebrities or influencers or people with influence. So it was very important for me to have a strong representation of that.”
Wang has three stores in China, one in Beijing and two in Shanghai. Regarding his ambitions for the Chinese market, he said: “I can’t give away all of that right now. But we’ve been doing a lot of great events and partnerships in China. We have a lot of excitement coming along down the pipeline.”
The designer added he “definitely” plans to open more stores in China.
“Hopefully I will be out there very soon,” he said. “We just did a great partnership with Pepsi. It’s a country that I love going back to. Because every time I go back, it changes completely. It is moving so quickly. It’s inspiring and there’s so much innovation coming out of China right now that I feel very proud to call that a home base.”
