ZIGGY CHEN MASCULINE SINGULAR

by Dafne Funeck

Moving between his home town of Shanghai and the rest of the world researching materials, tradition, art and design, Ziggy Chen brings his own personal version of men's fashion to the Paris catwalks.

Breaking down and recomposing elements, transforming a linear and concise narrative into garments studied down to the finest detail. This is Ziggy Chen, multifaceted stylist and owner of the eponymous brand, who since 2013 has been managing not just a menswear brand, but a fully-fledged design project, where the soul of tradition meets the spirit of the contemporary, always on the cutting edge of creativity.

If “The Medium is the Message” as philosopher and sociologist McLuhan once said, then for Ziggy Chen the clothing is the medium. Since the very start, his stylistic language has focussed intensely on quality, simplified volumes, material research and original fabrics. Uncompromisingly subverting the rules, redefining the futuristic panorama of a usable, yet sophisticated fashion, always straddling the old and the new.

This is his way of experimenting, going off the beaten track to punctuate his wardrobe with minimal, relaxed but bold figures, where the tangle of emotions encapsulated in the designer's soul finds its own space like a piece of a puzzle, confidently conveying the Chinese culture in which it is rooted, but with the cosmopolitan voice of he who has seen and knows the world.

This designer’s strength lies precisely in the research he dedicates to materials: wool, linen, leather, organic cotton and other elements coexisting in the structure of garments swathed in an intangible energy.

Raw juxtapositions clash in the softness of the figures; and precisely in the details the clothing takes on further meanings to lose ourselves in.

Each collection is a starting point, never a point of arrival, with its origin in his debut fall/winter 2013/14 collection.

Season after season, the designer continues the journey he interprets through his own personal language: from the glorious clothes that characterised seventeenth century Europe, to clothing styled on the workwear so close to the traditional clothes of his country, moving on to an intricate, universal style with its gaze firmly on the future.

While the exhibition entitled Chaos, organised in April 2021 in Shanghai, presented his most intimate universe, the latest Fall/winter 2023/24 collection shown in January of this year at the Paris Fashion Week finds the designer intent on experimenting with raw cut, thrown together items, in a new chapter of his vision and philosophy that sees the suit as both object and connection between past and future, in constant evolution.

Viglumsy, the collection’s title, is a crasis of Vigorous and Clumsy that synthesises the essence of the suit redefined and embellished by new details and original techniques.

Innovation and the combination of linen, the designer’s favourite fabric, wool, cashmere and cotton, play on the distinct weights of the materials.

Velvet accents appear among the various items, while complex, surprising prints are always defined in shades borrowed from nature.

In themselves these creations, the perfect synthesis of versatility and pragmatism, combine distinct elements of nature, design, creativity and uniqueness.

In the words of Maurizio Vela, who’s always been Ziggy Chen’s agent and who for years has been exclusively promoting avant-garde, conceptual brands from Paris:

“In a universe as flat and homogenised as Prêt-à-porter, ruled by the desire to dress like the masses following the lines created by the big brands, there’s still a niche market of customers constantly in search of something truly unique and original.

The kind of cool people capable of ripping through convention and establishing themselves as icons who don’t follow style but create it. Artists, singers, even ordinary people with strong personalities who know how to express them; people like Keanu Reeves and Orlando Bloom, who’ve been Ziggy Chen customers for years are perfect examples.

My job, and that of my colleagues, is to be able to find and reach people like these, and the only way of doing that is to target and get into the best multi-brand stores that sell global excellence and are always in search of new creative brands. Right from the start, managing to get into international showcases like Dover Street Market, Selfridges and The Library in London, L' Eclaireur in Paris, Antonioli in Milan, IF B.que and Atelier New York, Tsum Moscow, Maxfield Los Angeles, Isetan Tokyo and Lane Crawford Hong Kong, to name but a few, meant that the Ziggy Chen brand could dress the best of the world’s niche customers, and its appearance at the Paris fashion week proves it’s currently considered the most creative Avant-Gardist brand in the world.” ziggychen.com