Remember Covid, and the endless talk about change; change that, for the most part, never materialised. If the industry isn’t self-adjusting that leaves it up to designers to write the script going forward. Jason Wu has accepted the challenge. “I just think the pendulum has to shift, and I can only start with myself,” he said on a pre-show call. This season Wu, like Alejandro Gómez Palomo, announced he is trying out a one show a year model. Having made that decision, Wu wanted to do something especially memorable for spring/summer 2025. So he secured the public square and gardens at Hudson Yards and worked with his friends Mary and David Martin and their non-profit MADWORKSHOP to commission a sculpture, INK 01 / 6A 6B 6C, by Elise Co, a designer and technologist, in collaboration with artist Ben Borden, through which the models walked. Made of sheet steel, the hard, solid geometry of its structure contrasted with the fluid elements of the clothes.
The idea for the sculpture grew out of Wu’s primary inspiration, the work of Chinese artist Tong Yang-Tze, who, at age 82, the show notes reported, “will be the first Asian artist to create works for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall Commission this November.” Expect to hear much more of Ms. Tong. Based in Taipei, she creates large-sized pieces using Chinese calligraphy. It’s not necessary to be able to read the characters to appreciate the airy, graphic, and gestural aspects of her work.
When you put something down on paper, it has the potential to live forever. (We are still reading Shakespeare, for example.) Wu was taught calligraphy as a child, but his chosen medium is fabric. Wu did adapt some of Tong’s as prints, but more important was the way the work inspired his own. The opening look was a coat that was screenprinted after it had been produced, which left some of the under-fabric exposed. Nodding to painters’ canvas, the designer incorporated this material into his collection this season, where it shared space with silk, chiffon, and muslin. Yet it was ink, murky yet fluid, that really captured his imagination; he worked a lot with flou for spring, and lightness. This was reflected in his palette, a mix of pastels and black-and-white.
In the not so distant past, Wu’s name was synonymous with ladylike dressing and couture references, often to Charles James. But for the past few collections he has embraced perfect imperfection and put as much focus on tailoring, daywear, and knits, as his much-coveted dresses. Familiar from last season were plissés and distressing, as well as some Yohji-isms. Spring offered the surprise of some fetching menswear—Wu is an alumni of Hugo Boss—and shoes with Sergio Rossi. Among the loveliest touches was the insertion of wafty chiffon into tailored pieces; you can see it peeking out from the hem of a jacket of a robin’s egg-blue shorts suit, and undulating from the exposed seams of a sort of trench/robe hybrid (look 34).
In terms of cut, Wu experimented with geometric shapes that were left unattached and folded over, or functioned as a kind of vent as they gently fell open. (See the “tabs” on the crinkled tank tops in looks five and 30.) Many of the finale dresses, some of which felt derivative, contrasted flou and structure, which took the form of a corset. These were certainly lovely but it was the unstudied ease of the looks that preceded them that felt right and right for now.
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