BEAUTY: Clothing--Sean Suen

I have written about Sean Suen only once before, here. He has had his own brand since 2012 and started showing at Paris Fashion Week in 2016, but had not been on my radar until last year. And his current Fall-Winter '24-'25 collection at Paris Fashion Week is just as ambitious and interesting. Being of Chinese descent, it is natural that Suen's inspirations are based in Chinese culture. Previously, he looked to the Yi or Nuoso people who live in the rural mountainous regions of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi for inspiration (do look at the collection linked above). And his current collection plays with his childhood memories of growing up in China in the 90s when it was truly opening up to the world. Suen recalls this as a period when western clothing was supremely desirable. "At the time, when people looked for something new, they wanted a suit because what they had was a Mao jacket," he said.

Like many other designers this season (and in recent memory), he played with the scale and proportion of the suit, taking it out of the hands of the rigid business world: deconstruction instead of restriction. His collection could have been just another "oh-look-he-made-the-pants-too-long" moment (like some other designers). But upon inspection, one can see his background and skill in rigorous tailoring at play. The way he chooses to alter a section of a suit and how he chooses to do so shows mastery. It is as though he first reduced the three dimensional suit to two dimensions and adjusted within that framework. I like the little additions to the Western suit story he peppered in like suspenders and gold watch chains.

But from there, he diverged into some amazing thigh-high boots and fur stoles/muffs in a nod to genderless dressing (to balance out the suits?). I can't find any info about whether these latter items are vegan furs. I hope they are. Many high-profile houses have gone fur-free in recent years including Armani. No reason why a designer would continue to use real fur when the synthetic substitutes are indistinguishable.

https://www.seansuen.com/