Yuhan Wang presented her Autumn/Winter 2022 collection in The Old Selfridges Hotel, the collection titled “Venus in Furs”.
It was one of her most wide-ranging collections, featuring 35 looks with combinations of tailored and textile designs. If you’ve got a passion for textiles or you love textured garments, this collection is certainly for you. From a printed all over blazer-jacket, vegan leather trousers with repeated floral print to ribbed knits featuring fluffy cat designs. The cat motif is seen in a handful of pieces in the collection in the form of a hand-painted watercolour pattern printed on satin, as well as on a parakeet green knitwear three piece ensemble made up of a cropped long-sleeved jumper, cropped sweater vest and mini shorts. “Women are like cats,” says Yuhan. “Sometimes we can be very cute but sometimes we can bite.”
To Yuhan, femininity was very important to her creative process, and there are multiple ways to interpret femininity, one of the inspirations was inspired by the extract from Venus in Furs (a novella by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch): “Watch out, I have a large, very large fur, with which I could cover you up entirely, and I have a mind to catch you in it as in a net”. For Yuhan, the idea of ‘fur’ relates to the different furs we put, and have, on our body. “Whether that’s clothing or hair – there’s beauty in the diversity of these different furs. It’s not about just one type. For me, the power comes from the diversity. We should be proud to be ourselves.”
Yuhan also cites getting inspiration from Mosuo women, a small matriarchal society living in South West China, often referred to as the Kingdom of Women, “It’s very unique as it’s in Asia which is very traditional and a male dominated society.”
The inspiration really shown in her collections, with strong yet playful tailoring pieces, shearling-trimmed outerwear style with delicate lace socks with flurry slippers, showing the strong and delicate sides of a modern woman.
Beside the inspirations of femininity, the designer also engaged on sustainability, all cotton used in this collection were recycled whilst the faux leather has been sourced by a local supplier and reused and the 3D printed buttons, modelled after statues of Greek goddesses, ears, noses, eyes and hair pieces have been created using corn plastic, made from polyactic acid (PLA) – an alternative to plastic, very creative, very inspired and very fun!
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Words: Adam,Chi Lung Chan
Photography: Chris Yates