The designer is sitting out the pre-fall season entirely with plans to celebrate his brand’s 15th anniversary in the spring of 2020. “It was really thinking about: How can we dedicate and really focus our resources where we felt it was necessary?” Wang said. “For us that was the 15th anniversary. A show in December felt like it maybe wasn’t the best place to put our focus. I don’t want to say that this is a decision that means we won’t return to a fashion show again, or that we don’t believe in the format, but it just felt like the right moment for us to do something different.”
Wang was one of the first designers to move his shows to a June-December schedule in 2017, helping to establish micro-fashion weeks in New York. At the time, the thinking was that the off-season schedule allowed for bigger impact shows – less competition for editors’ time and eyeballs. It also aligned better with wholesale buys, meaning that retailers could allot higher percentages of their seasonal budgets to Wang. “I think the proven success [of the pre-collection schedule] is that we’ve seen orders be able to really grow under this cadence,” Wang said. “I think that was the right move for us. It was definitely a good learning experience.”
The fact that a pre-fall 2020 collection would deliver at the height of Wang’s planned 15-year celebrations was one reason the brand chose to leave the schedule. Another is his ongoing inclination to innovate and disrupt the fashion system. “When we look at some of our most memorable shows, I think the things that we remember and the things that resonate with our audience have always been about more than just the clothes: It’s the entire experience,” he said. “It was the story, it was the location, it was the concept. It was always more than just a fashion show. We want to be able to look at this from a different point of view that will allow us to be a little more experimental. That’s really where the intention to do something bigger next year came from.”
The form that “something bigger” might take is still mostly under wraps, although the designer did admit he’s planning a big-time consumer-facing “moment” for the second quarter of the year. Wang stressed the importance of speaking directly to his shoppers. “All of this energy and effort has always been in service of the customer. In thinking about how we’ve shown before, as exciting as it has been to put on these big events, most of the customers don’t know what season it is, what collection it is, when it’s really arriving in stores. They love the energy of the Rockefeller Center show but when they go to the store, it’s not really reflected there,” he said. For the 15-year celebrations, Wang is brainstorming new ways to create immediate connections between idea, event, and product. Though product might actually come last in that hierarchy.
“I said to the team: It doesn’t even matter if we’re showing product,” Wang said boldly. “I think that today, the relationship between brand and customer is much deeper than that. Obviously, there is going to be other pieces of content and things that we’ll do after this big kick-off that will service the product in a really direct way. The kick-off is going to be something that is more about establishing who we are... At the end of the day I think that anyone can buy product anywhere. We want to be deeper than that. I think it’s more important to build and establish our roots so that we can be around for another 15 years, that is really my main message.”
Thanks to social media and various personal projects, Wang is in contact with his consumer more than ever. He can track comments on his YouTube web series while he personally reads through the DMs on his Instagram. “Some are crazy, some are scary, some are heartwarming, but you get this direct connection with a person who either appreciates the brand or has some criticism,” Wang said. “I think that is something that we really take to heart. These are people who have something to say and they want to tell you.” He’ll get even closer to his fans when his talk show, Potty Talk, debuts on Quibi next year too.
In describing this multi-faceted approach, Wang begins to sound a lot like someone pursuing a lifestyle concept. That’s not surprising – he paid homage to the American icons Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein on his last runway. “Sometimes I think it’s good that people can’t classify you,” he said, shirking the traditional label of fashion designer. “There are other exciting projects coming up that I can’t necessarily announce right now,” he continued, “but they will definitely push the limits in terms of how we can be able to build lifestyle. That’s a hope and an ambition for the future.”
The Wang lifestyle, of course, is about partying and having a good time. Last week, Wang hosted a holiday party on the Lower East Side, and in January, he’ll put together a Chinese New Year celebration. Later in the winter, he’ll open his second flagship at the American Dream mall in New Jersey. All this, plus a springtime of 15th anniversary celebrations, guarantees plenty of opportunities for a #Wangover in 2020. As the designer talks about connection with his clientele and upping the ante on what a fashion brand can be, he starts to wax poetic. “What’s going to make us feel different? What’s going to leave a lasting memory?” A word of advice from the designer himself: Take some milk thistle before hitting the bar to ensure that the memories from these upcoming #Wangfests actually last.
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