The designer’s vision for Balenciaga, his own label and H&M has made him a 21st-century fashion superstar. He explains how Danielle Steel inspired him, why he turned down Diane von Furstenberg and why ‘active, easy’ dressing matters
My lunch date walks into the lobby of the Tribeca Grand hotel in New York, shrugging off his heavy black coat as iced air off the Hudson river gives way to the sleepy fug of lobby warmth. In black jeans and charcoal grey crewneck, tucking his phone and white earbuds into a pocket, bouncing boyishly on his sneakers, you might at first peg him as, say, a Silicon Valley whiz-kid rather than a top-flight fashion designer. But then he gets nearer, and the grey crewneck reveals itself to be the finest double-ply cashmere, and his hair is in a perfectly-imperfect man-bun, and the twentysomethings at the next table recognise him and swivel in their seats to get a better look, and there is no mistaking who it is: Alexander Wang, the 21st century’s fashion superhero.
Alexander Wang is a name that means everything to the younger generation, and almost nothing to their parents – which, of course, is exactly why the kids love it. A few days after my lunch with Wang, the New York Times ran a feature on the Wang sample sale, profiling the shoppers who arrived at 5am for a below-zero four-hour wait to buy discounted handbags and clothes. Mostly, they were 25 and under. It is no coincidence that Wang’s jeans-and-monochrome look is closer to Mark Zuckerberg than to Karl Lagerfeld, because he comes from the generation for whom technology is at the heart of everything they do. When he revealed he was working on last year’s out-of-the-box-hit high street collaboration, Wang x H&M, the news did not come in office hours via a press release: instead, it was launched on Instagram, at midnight on a Saturday.
Continue reading...