Huishan Zhang Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear Collection

While London Fashion Week rumbled on despite the city’s somber mood, Huishan Zhang found himself in the peculiar situation of watching it all unfold from afar. Marooned in his studio in Qingdao because of strict Chinese quarantine rules, the designer reverted back to the dismal reality of two years ago. Still, he is looking forward.

“I wanted to know how the clothes of my homeland would look in the future,” Zhang explained over Zoom. “And I didn’t want to wait to find out.” The always positive designer took the traditional Chinese cheongsam as his starting point and then catapulted it into 2046. Inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s sci-fi romance titled after the same year, as well as the AI thriller Ex Machina, the couture-obsessed Zhang proposed graphic silhouettes infused with the love and loss he felt when watching these films. In one case of avant-garde showmanship, the sequins were said to moonlight as microchips. For anyone watching, it was business as usual in his glossy world.

The show, held at 180 the Strand, played out as per usual, with an international cast of size-zero models moonlighting as the Huishan Zhang woman who likes her uniform sharp with a side of embellishment. Next season looks bright—not least because of the retina-searing shades Zhang described as “electrifying”—but the designer, who will later broadcast his spring 2023 show at Shanghai Fashion Week, would do well to stick to his own signature Pantoned take on prim and proper.