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Zane Li and his partner, the stylist Jason Rider, traded New York for Paris this season. The experiment aligns with the release of their first men’s collection, they explained, and will apply to the womenswear lineup to be unveiled next month. (Otherwise they’d be showing that in New York in just two weeks—not ideal.) It’s a shame for New York, really, that some young designers with promise feel the need to make the jump this early on. Chalk it up to the amount of buyers and editors who bypass the city each season. But then again, why would they make the trip when the proverbial mountain keeps coming to them?
As for this outing, at a tight 22 looks, it made for a delicious and appetizing amuse-bouche (hey, when in Paris!). And while the collection was based on Li’s persuasive and idiosyncratic point of view on American sportswear, and borrowed from the peculiarities of “how boys looked in Takeshi Kitano’s movies,” as Li said at a preview, the designer might consider framing this lineup as a fall men’s and women’s pre-fall twofer. There was lots of covetable gender agnostic fashion here, something he’ll likely hear from his buyers, too. How he packages the wider women’s lineup in March, and how they’re both received, should help Li flesh out this approach moving forward.
The menswear iteration of Lii is intentionally more approachable than its women’s counterpart. “It’s more wardrobe-y,” he said. Li is a clever and playful designer whose way of intervening a classic style does not overly complicate it. He cut a cocooning trench in an active poly fabric that was fused with silk and felt satiny but not shiny—its “gun” flap was was actually a removable, rectangular piece of fabric in a pop color (the jacket version had removable hoods that draped down the back nicely when left hanging). A couple of long-sleeve shirts were slit from the hem to the collar at the center front, which meant they could be used as scarves; this and a double shirt draped on one side to hike up the torso were borrowed American boy-isms—think skaters taking off one of their shirt sleeves when they get hot.
The starting point design-wise was utilitarian menswear—hence the seemingly waterproof nylon shirting and supersized anoraks—“but the execution is less practical,” Li said. It makes sense: there’s certainly enough practical athleisure out in the world (and market, and landfills). This kind of design thinking, generous and instinctual, is something Li should strive to hold on regardless of where he shows and how.
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