Summer has stuck around in Shanghai. With temperatures in the 30s—that’s the low 90s for Fahrenheit users—and lots, lots of humidity, Fashion Week has been sticky thus far. Printed show notes are enjoying a comeback as hand fans, and everyone in the streets is dressing for the weather: simpler, skimpier. As if they could have predicted the heat, a sense of levity was present on Austin Wang and Yansong Liu’s Ao Yes runway.
Wang and Liu are known mostly for their tailoring, which is by far some of the most precise and exacting here in Shanghai. Their Mao jackets and trousers have become an if you know, you know fashion person uniform amongst the city’s fashion cognoscenti, a gospel recently delivered to new audiences by way of a Zara collaboration. This is a good thing, a great one, even. But as with any label built around a rigorous signature style, there’s always the risk of the look becoming too specific and strict.
And so this season Ao Yes turned a new leaf: more skin, lighter fabrics, and a much looser hand. It’s the right instinct from Wang and Liu, who seem to have also taken some notes from the jauntier, friskier ways in which the fashion crowd is wearing Ao Yes. Their firmer grasp on their target audience translated as a palpable confidence in the season’s key proposals. For men: short-shorts and mid-calf length trousers paired with flip-flops and a fantastic new jacket shape worn over t-shirts rather than button-downs. For women: the aforementioned, plus some coquettish qipao-like dresses, some cut close to the body in colorful jacquards and others looser, flared, and often slightly sheer.
The duo quoted the famed writer Yu Dafu, who was known for his romantic candor and sentimentalism, as the season’s inspiration. The original impetus behind Ao Yes was to refocus the discipline of these more traditional Chinese silhouettes through a more fashion lens. They’ve managed to convert true believers each season, particularly among young people. This time around they were aided by the frankness of the newfound sensuality of their clothes: less prim, far more playful. Let’s just say that the audience was definitely feeling the heat.
