Louis Shengtao Chen has many, many emotions. “This season the girl is getting mad,” the designer mentioned backstage after his fall 2024 present in Shanghai. “She’s somewhat bit loopy, she’s indignant!” Like each season, Chen defined, the girl in query is the feminine model of himself. So what’s he indignant about?

A looming feeling of instability, the long-term results of the pandemic—which we’re experiencing in actual time now—an trade strained by financial uncertainty, your on a regular basis anxiousness. TL; DR, simply choose your poison. 

All that mentioned, Chen additionally has many, many concepts. Whereas he was fast to declare that this isn’t a thematic assortment, one might discover just a few frequent threads: There have been some natural world within the form of rosettes and butterfly and deer prints (the latter of which graced the cowl of Vogue China’s Shanghai Vogue Week version on a coat); there have been gloriously bouncy, ballooning bustles and panniers and crinolines formed with Chen’s signature irreverence and exacting technical finesse; and there have been riffs on what the designer christened as “streetwear glamour.” 

These consisted of demi-couture-ish cropped zip hoodies lined in rose appliques, slouchy tailor-made trousers, ultra-suede shearling vests, mohair maxi attire with sweeping tentacular hems, and sequin “puffies” worn as gloves or leg heaters, which delivered a relaxing ASMR impact on the runway. Balancing these extra informal choices was a run of deliciously tailor-made coats, roomy louche slips, and deftly formed corsets—when you want proof of how properly Chen is aware of his approach round a girdle, simply check out how he snatched a shearling coat with some satin and some items of boning.  

Chen recognized night fabrications as his consolation zone, “what folks establish as Louis Shengtao Chen,” he mentioned, and defined that the problem right here was to stretch his perspective to the avenue. “We’re very snug with doing stuff that could be very romantic, softer, and delightful,” he mentioned. “This was the primary time we did one thing on this actual juxtaposition with streetwear.” He did so to nice impact. At simply 27 Chen is remarkably self-aware however nonetheless preserves the naiveté that makes his work thrilling. 

However what’s it that drives Chen loopy? “I’m all the time loopy about romance!” he exclaimed, to which his publicist quipped in reply: “such a Pisces.” Emotional, delicate, and imaginative but introspective and mental. A duality between fantasy and actuality. Sounds identical to a LouisShengtao Chen assortment.