Lii Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear
Looking at the images of LIIâs spring 2025 collection, you might be surprised to learn the inspiration was Michael Haneke movies. âThe characters are in a very formal or a very intense space, but then somehow thereâs a breakthrough or a break point that basically becomes the plot of the movie,â the designer Zane Li said in the Chinatown studio where he was showing his collection. âIâm really attracted by the intensity of people in a formal location or in a formal space so I thought, âOK, letâs think about how to undo evening wear.ââ
The lookbook opened with a sort of bandeau/cape which is Liâs version of the classic fur shrug. Except in his case he took the shape of a T-shirt and connected the sleeves to wrap around the body. It might sound like a piece of clothing that is ânot functional,â but the minute you slip it on, it forces you to adapt the sort of formal stance of wearing a shrug and then suddenly it all clicksâitâs the same as balancing a pashmina about your arms as you walk around a dinner party, arms extended in perpetual glamour.
A simple shift dress the color of a beige file folder seemes to be half-floating in front of the modelâs body. It wasnât a styling trick, but a dress with one sleeve, except the other sleeve was still present, just left open at the shoulder seam. Underneath was layered a black top with a similar yet opposing design; instead of leaving the shoulder seam open, Li created a long loop that connects the two. Meanwhile, on a simple geometric dress with spaghetti straps, the back extended like an upside down shark fin, but it was just the classic cowl back of an evening gown, made from a stiffer fabric that provides more dramatic results (it could also be worn the regular way).
Another short sleeve dress had a cutout at the waist, with a wide panel tied around the waist that created a kind of cowl neck effect, which was sort of mirrored by the way the fabric on the bodice hung over the belt. Although in photographs Liâs clothes might seem like complicated garments with zero real-life utility; they are in fact things you can just literally throw on and go, often made from cotton and other technical and sporty fabrics made for living. Li has already done all the thinking in his design, adding as much impact as he can while simultaneously subtracting everything unnecessary so that you donât have to think about anything when getting dressed.
Such is the magic of Liâs work; in only two collections he has managed to create an incredibly deep visual vocabulary that feels modern and exciting but also harks back to the last vestiges of our pre-millennium tension before 9/11, before the complete dominance of the internet, before AI. Like a purer vision of a future that never quite arrived, but maybe now, we can have it after all.
