Romance, Mark Gong-style, begins with a crush and ends with a spectacular lapse in judgment. For spring, his girl falls for a stranger, checks her phone obsessively, and dresses for a man who may not even know her name. As Gong put it, “when your brain writes a love story, casts the wrong person, and refuses to cancel the show.”
The collection traded the designer’s familiar leather-and-lace toughness for a sassy, Y2K-inflected Lolita glamour. Low-slung skirts, bare midriffs, lace teamed with cargo pants, see-through peignoirs, lingerie tops, and skintight ruffled denim skirts played up a deliberately girlish sensuality. Sequins, feathers, and flowing trains added drama, culminating in hip-swaying mermaid dresses with undulating hems. After nearly 20 seasons of tough leather, Gong abandoned it altogether, softening the usually swaggering, hard-edged silhouettes favored by his cohort of K-Pop stars with swathes of crushed satin, trembling sequins, and frothy layers. The Gong Girl was still dressing to impress; the question was whether the object of her affection deserved the effort.
The show came with Shanghai Fashion Week’s most conspicuous celebrity turnout: OuYang NaNa, Somi, and He Chao Lian were among those attending. It also started late, a minor event in most fashion capitals, perhaps, but something of a novelty in Shanghai, where shows have so far run commendably on time. Even punctuality, it seems, can be sacrificed for love, or a little star power.
Gong said he drew freely from his own romantic misadventures. There was something touching, if faintly alarming, about turning the indignities of a crush into 67 looks. The final two sinuous dresses circled back to last season’s finale, suggesting that after all the emotional contortions, the Gong Girl might eventually recognize herself again. Until then, she has sequins to wear, messages to check, and an imaginary love story to sustain, dressing to the nines for a man who, in all likelihood, wasn’t worth the wait.