Feng Chen Wang A Future in Bloom collection for SS26 signals a shift, not in direction, but in depth. As the brand enters its second decade, the designer returns to her core principles with renewed intensity: nature, construction, and individuality. This season doesn’t chase spectacle or reinvention. Instead, it examines how menswear can hold emotional charge, material precision, and quiet resistance, all within one frame.
The collection begins in direct conversation with nature. Wang continues her collaboration with artisans to apply a botanical dyeing method that presses fresh leaves into 45cm-wide strips of handwoven cotton using heat. These leaves leave behind exact impressions, traces of shape and color that sit directly in the fabric, not above it. No two pieces look alike. The surface carries evidence of time and handling. Raw fabric edges remain visible, never trimmed away. Color stays close to natural reference points: warm beige, bamboo green, and soft pink return as grounding tones.
This connection to the organic runs alongside experiments in control and contrast. Wang applies hand-sprayed dyeing techniques to nylon, building mottled blues that drift across jackets, trousers, and outerwear. The irregularity in tone speaks to the body’s movement, never fixed, always in motion. These garments sit between function and abstraction, bridging city pace and open sky. The tailoring, central to Wang’s menswear language, adapts to this tension. She strips suits of stiffness by using lighter materials and structured pleats. The result holds shape without weight, precision without constraint.
New forms enter the Feng Chen Wang vocabulary this season. Plaid appears for the first time, not as pattern but as material. Wang sculpts it into architectural silhouettes with sharp edges and exaggerated volumes. Rather than evoke tradition, the plaid pieces introduce new weight and space into the collection. Elsewhere, knitwear breaks from comfort. Instead of softness, Wang pushes into material resistance. She uses yarns that distort the surface, shifting away from smoothness and toward friction.
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Wang introduces lace as a material not to soften but to interrupt. It sits within the structure, adding transparency and pause without diluting form. She allows garments to stretch and pull between openness and control, creating space inside each look for contradiction.
Casting reinforces the collection’s grounding in lived structure. NBA player Russell Westbrook opens the show. His presence, athletic, assured, familiar, carries force without spectacle. He wears the clothes as part of himself, not outside himself. Actor Daniel Millar and models Kit Price and Calum Harper join a cast that reflects the designer’s ongoing commitment to diversity and access. Half the runway features individuals discovered through open calls.
