“I create the woman I would like to become,” said Yirantian Guo after this latest Shanghai Fashion Week show at the Labelhood hub. This might sound straightforward enough, but as Guo elaborated both on her runway and in the chat afterwards, that woman she would like to become contains far too many facets ever to be definable via one look: instead her complexity of character demands a corresponding depth and diversity in dress.
Guo broke down this collection’s typologies of character into three categories. The first was the businesswoman. She wore high shawl collared, double-breasted tailored jackets in leather or wool with matching knee-length skirts, knit cardigan jackets with fitted knit drop-waist skirts (Guo said the drop waist reflects “how women want to be,” in her experience, right now), and boat-necked knit tank tops over collared shirting and pleated shorting.
Next on Guo’s list was “modern housewife.” As she pointed out: “a lot of women have very hard exteriors but are also very soft on the inside. They just need to be strong.” Funnel-necked cape coats worn over leather pants, or outerwear accented by big faux fur collar pieces and even bigger brushed out hairstyles seemed to hint at the protective domestic facades Guo suggested she was pointing towards. Guo said the spiky angular outlines of her embroidered patches and the big shoulders on many of her looks were placed in conscious contrast to the undulating layered outline of her lace-edged skirts and slip dresses, in order to distill the competing aspects of her multifaceted woman.
Between these categories sat at third, which Guo called “freelance.” She added: “That’s because in China there are a lot of freelancers, between maybe 30 and 40 years old, who are independent women and who love their lifestyles.” This quite precise definition belied the impression that the entirety of her collection was designed, in the end, for independent women: even the choice of her existing customer base to opt for a still emerging local designer over the hyper-marketed allure of the foreign luxury brands is a pretty strong indicator of self-possession. Guo’s very put together Yirantian woman seemed finely realized, highly capable, and recognizably true.