Overlapping jackets and orchid prints recall oriental style, a perfect marriage of tradition and innovation
Past and present intertwine, together creating a new future in KB Hong’s next Spring Summer collection, presented for the fifth consecutive year at Milan Fashion Week. A proposal, that of the Chinese brand, whose protagonists are elegance and poetry that, through the eyes of a man with a gentle soul, harmoniously scrutinise the passing of time.
The KB Hong man is indeed an observer, proud and aware of his own experience and traditions but fascinated and intrigued by the future. He thus manages to explore different attitudes, to find new inspirations, always remaining true to his essence.
His are experiments that strengthen his being, his identity, as when he takes the traditional elegant codes of oriental costume and revisits them in looks with a western flavour.
Thus the iconic asymmetrical lapels, with particular overlaps and unusual constructions, become the new overlapping jackets that recall the oriental style, to be matched with wide trousers, sometimes real skirts with panels inspired by ancient costumes of the imperial warriors of the Han fu dynasty.
Oriental elegance blends naturally with Western elegance also in the outerwear, which has belt-like stitched edges, oversized volumes and comfortable fits.
Wool, silk, but also wrought cotton or technical fibres mixed with natural ones give lustre to the garments, enhanced by unusual graphics or combinations: the blazer has the back of a shirt, the shirt itself is printed all over with a large placed floral design, the floral jacquards fade like abstract canvases.
An idea of purity and nobility enhanced by orchids sketched like sketches on white canvases and by mythological birds with large wings represented between prints and precious jacquards, between tones of black and jade green, black with amber yellow, ivory colours and warm touches of beige, coral pink to shades of ruby. Architectural details, frames and workmanship stolen from ancient oriental constructions help convey a reassuring sense of freedom, which sinks into the past to live in the present and imagine, together, a new future.
KB Hong’s Oriental aesthetic just made its debut at the 106th edition of Pitti Uomo – staged in Florence from 11 to 14 June – where it presented two different collections, the Fall Winter 2024/25 and the Spring Summer 2025, characterised by its Oriental aesthetic reinterpreted in a contemporary key and translated into an agile and urban ready-to-wear.
