During a regular edition of the Shanghai Fashion Week, the CT Liu show for Cplus Series takes a headliner place. But this was not a regular SHFW: a slimmer line -up of presentations meant that designers such as Liu exchanged the runway for the showroom, whereby their focus shifted to commercial offering to endure the economic storm ahead.
Liu makes the right fashion show clothing – Barlowy dresses, glittering dresses, an evening style or two – so the idea to present via Lookbook was not particularly tempting. But because he was a good sport, he took on the challenge as an opportunity to do more with less, to shoot this set of images at his showroom space between market agreements and his styling play-by-a mix of street-ready maximalism and Piek 2000’s American Apparel era playfulness. With their glittering faces, his models are like aliens or fairies or extras in a SCI-Fi film. Even if there was a feeling that he compensated for his absence of the catwalk, he made up for the good roundedness of his output. Whether it is a skirt suit, a sparkling dress or gray training pants, it all had a clarity about who the person wears it could be.
During a Walkthrough, the designer explained that he had no elevated concept or multi -layered inspiration. The collection was rather an exercise in making a number of good, fun, salable clothing – just as noble as a search. Although there was no shortage of the club ready, pieces in Liu, he made a good argument for the way his clothes can adapt to the day. “She’s the boss, but is more a deal in a Y2K look than in a suit,” he joked. In the mix there were sweaters and knits, some with draped collars, others blurred and rugged, and even more with sharp, to size-like shoulders, as well as balloon-hemmed blouses, separated with pure sequins and picturesque flowers on a button-down and on a shearling jacket. In a Corp-Core season, Liu made a solid thing to keep a position while dressing for the office and then.