Garden of Earthly Delights
Review of Jason Wu Collection Spring 2024 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
THE THEME
Taking the opportunity of the spring season to explore how life and growth are part of the same natural cycle as death and decay, Jason Wu used distressed fabrics, exposed seams, and surface treatments like beaded embroidery and jacquard to create a richly patinated collection of organic elegance.
THE BUZZWORDS
Earthy. Fecund. Phantasmagoric. Textural.
THE SHOWSTOPPER
Look # 9
The statement coat has a unique power, and this one certainly made a statement. Silk printed with vintage botanical etchings nicely summarized the collection’s flavor of darkly whimsical delicacy, while the frayed edges lent that beautiful touch of decay.
THE DIRECTION
The sunken, glassed-in fountain in the circular basement of a Financial District skyscraper – a location that has never been used for a fashion show, and never will again, as it is currently under construction to become a food hall – lent the audience of sitting in a terrarium: an apt setting for a collection that drew inspiration from soil’s decay and fecundity and the plants that grow from it.
THE WRAP UP
The collection was perhaps one of the more directly thematic ones we’ve seen from Jason Wu, and the direction worked in the designer’s favor. Enriching his understanding for contemporary codes of feminine elegance through a crafted and controlled foray into chaotic fecundity, the designer shares a tactile expression of the beauty of renewal.
