Uma Wang transported her audience to a different time and place, strange and wonderful, though she wasn’t altogether sure exactly where. And that was exactly the point. Hers was a story about the fabric — textiles that looked worn, frayed and faded, like lost treasures yanked out of a dusty trunk and bestowed a new life.
It looked like several pairs of jodhpurs went past, poking out from under the layers, but who could be sure. Long suit coats were split into three long panels in the back, which flapped in all directions. Shoes were made of fabric, with large, wide tufts that shot out in front, scraping against each other as the models shuffled past. There was also something resembling a Dutch bonnet, worn over a stiff, crinkly ivory dress, with loose lace trousers poking out from below.
It was a clever trick, showcasing the fabric by using it for silhouettes of an unidentifiable era and inserted into a weathered universe — part past and part future.
“I wanted people to be a little bit confused,” explained Wang after the show.
Her heroine was from “nowhere, maybe Mongolia, maybe Japan, maybe China, maybe England, maybe wherever,” she added. Wherever she was from, she
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