After almost a decade of showing in Paris, Sean Suen felt it was time to shake things up. Instead of a runway format, he opted for a presentation in an art gallery in the Marais, hanging his designs like sculptures in metal frames.
Such a setup was all the better to see the structural play inspired by the idea of a second skin, or rather the transition between the old and the new. Constriction then release were materialized using the contrast between Eastern and Western sartorial traditions.
Jackets so fitted as to look shrunken telegraphed the idea of outgrowing, although they were balanced out by extra-wide bottoms. Shedding was expressed in voluminous folds and textures, such as leather bonded with a thin metallic backing and crinkled in a way that Suen said evoked the idea of paper-thin fragility.
He went roomy and long for the final group, congruent with new ease, offering a handsome robe coat in fuzzy wool and a coat that was classic on the front, party at the back.
To further highlight the notion of a shift that could happen at any moment, Suen imagined clothes that could be put on from all sides, with the final shape dependent on which closure faced front. One blouson looked like a bomber if its long curving zip side was on the front and took on a straight cut if its buttons side faced forward. Give his dab hand at construction, there was plenty to love, whichever skin you were in.
