PH5’s Zoe Champion and Wei Lin apply the same exactitude to the conceptualization of their collections as to the production of their no-waste programmed knits. Going into spring knowing they wouldn’t be staging a show allowed the colleagues to take a breath and let some light stream in, said Champion on a call. The designer didn’t mean this only metaphorically; she’s moved apartments, become “a first-time plant mom,” and spent months tracking the movement of light in her new digs in order to position her greenery in a way most conducive to growth. “The collection is really inspired by the shadows that are created by plants in your home,” she said, “or when you’re out in a park and lying under a tree and these beautiful shadows will slowly move over you and you take the time to appreciate that.”
Many of the patterns, some of which looked like cyanotypes, were developed from Champion’s photographs. The slanting beams of light they captured were translated elsewhere into neater horizontal bandage dresses. The brand’s UV-reactive yarns were back and used for the first time as solids. Patterned dresses made of this material are intended to be interactive. “You can actually create prints yourself in real time outside,” explained Champion. Depending on how the light hits you, different aspects of the hidden patterns will be revealed.
Each season the duo tries to expand their offering; they need to do that in a way that has impact. Showing a single solid dress with ties felt like an oversight, not the introduction of a new category. The addition of hand-crocheted flowers, intended to create a contrast between 3D and 2D representations of plants, felt cutesy rather than chic. Also new this season was a fascinating soft-relief knit technique resembling an etching (see Look 7) that, had it been used tonally, would have been the most subtle way the team could have achieved their goal of celebrating “nature’s quiet beauty.”
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