The fantasy world that designer Robert Wun has been able to cultivate since his 2014 beginnings has had models like Naomi Campbell, Liu Wen, and Edie Campbell favorably touting his designs in editorials and on the streets. While others clamored about the future of the industry when the pandemic first started, Wun trudged on from his London base, recently releasing a personal F/W 21 collection, as a cathartic ode to his late grandmother. Growing up in Hong Kong, Wun gathered creative inspiration from all his surroundings honing in on nature, specifically flowers or birds. These themes are now woven throughout his designs as he floats between harsh, folded lines and soft, flowing textiles. The delicate balance continues as pierced armored panels and precisely pleated skirts blossom then give way to Birds of Paradise-inspired technicolor hues. Whether he’s being inspired by Alexander McQueen, Beatrix Kiddo, or the strong women in his life, Wun’s work has embodied a spirit that has had empowered celebrities like Doja Cat, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, and Celine Dion tapping in. Now as the fashion circuit turns to London we spoke briefly to Wun about showing on his own time, an upcoming F/W 22 theme that Hitchcock would love, and why staging a runway show isn’t a priority.
How did you get your start and did you always want to be a designer from early on?
I’ve been interested in doing something creative I think since I was very young. My mom still had a whole box of A4 poster paper filled with things that I drew every night before I went to sleep since I was three years old, and the majority of them are of nature, the safari, the sea animals, and the sea. I found out about fashion when I was an early teenager I think, 11 or 12 years old. My family is Catholic so we’d go to church every Sunday and there was this rebellious girl, a few years older than me, that just got into a fashion design course. I looked up to her a lot in a way and she became a very close friend of mine for that period of time in Hong Kong. She was the first introduction for me to what fashion designers were, that something like that exists. I got into thrift shopping, I started exploring my own identity and making stuff for myself and that was the beginning. Then my parents decided that it would be best for me if I wanted to pursue something like that, to move back to London to live with my grandparents. So, I came back to London to start foundation courses at the London College of Fashion.
Relating to your friend that you followed around in Hong Kong, it sounds like your muse wasn’t necessarily centered in fashion, but more in your reality. When you were getting your understanding of fashion, did you have any fashion presences that stood out in your mind as far as inspiration, or were you more informed by the people and women around you?
There is a distinct separation of what fashion is here [in London] and the reality is like for people from, let’s say Hong Kong, but I believe fashion happens everywhere in the world. The first time I really go to know about luxury fashion was Alexander McQueen. It was a magazine my mom was reading in the salon while doing her hair. His shows were almost like a movie and he’s also highly inspired by nature. However, the reality is when you live in Hong Kong, that type of fashion is a very far-away fantasy – they don’t look like us and were casting a white majority, back in the old days. They don’t speak our language, they never look into our part of the world. So my muses have always been women that I know in my real life.
It’s funny that you mention that because obviously some of their biggest moments have been on the backs of huge celebrities like Celine Dion, Doja Cat, and Lady Gaga. Do you feel your pieces come alive on someone who has a character profile or is there no different than the mass market?
For actresses, I know that there’s a character behind them; they’re more than just a beautiful figure that’s walking in and out, so it enchants me a lot more. I wouldn’t say that is something that I particularly focus on but of course, it is more exciting and inspiring when you dress someone that is very iconic and successful in their field of work. You are now dressing that embodiment of their success and their cultural contribution. The upside of it is you’ll be able to dress people that your parents look up to like Celine Dion, who is someone I’ve looked up to since I was a child. There’s some magic in those moments that really is undeniable. However, when we present a collection, you are talking about your own story and that’s where incredible models come in, who are also actors in a different form, as they’re embodying your world now.
For the past year or so, did you experience any challenges navigating the pandemic?
Yeah, I mean still have a lot of challenges. I skipped S/S 22 because since our name took off, we’ve gotten more job offers and our mainstream revenue is from custom orders and consultancy. I’d rather take a season off to solidify, make money, take care of and grow my team properly and then I can come back with a more prepared structure to be able to take the brand to the next level. The A/W 21 collection was very personal to me and when that collection was released it was completely done by myself. I shot it on my iPhone with both of my model friends.
“You can’t get trapped into these schedules and deadlines that the market wants you to then still be able to deliver all these commitments and improve.”
It worked so well because it was so personal and it is incredible how it connects to people all around the world. Luckily a lot of success and attention came through that collection and one of the challenges that I’m facing is how do you carry on with that? How do you not get stuck into the trap of that’s now what people identify you as a designer? I admire designers that are able to go to different places and different time periods while still being able to re-innovate themselves and do new things. It made me ask what is Robert Wun? What should we carry on and what should we develop more as a technique? How do we expand our audience? How do we put into practice what we always preach as well as a business? These are the things that take time to answer. You can’t get trapped into these schedules and deadlines that the market wants you to then still be able to deliver all these commitments and improve. Since I’ve never been included in the schedule I just take my time to really do this right and the only one that I need to be responsible for is myself and my team.
To be honest, what you’re saying, a lot of designers at these huge conglomerates are following suit. Demna had a quote saying that he doesn’t want to do Balenciaga couture more than once a year. Gucci’s Alessandro Michelle was trying to get off schedule. Everyone has been trying to get off schedule, but it still seems to be something that designers fall under pressure to overdeliver.
Absolutely. It’s draining, it’s not healthy for the long term, and it’s definitely not great for your team. People need to know that all these great houses, behind them, is the team that actually makes them who they are and these are the people who work so hard, dare I say harder than the designer sometimes, yet they get none of the fame, glory or praise. Let’s say you work very well with this pressure and you deliver and you make so much money, people are just going to continue being behind the scenes suffering, and one day they’re going to have enough. What are you without them as well? We can’t say the toxic energy and work environment is the way fashion is – this is just being lazy and submitting to a system that is never supposed to be surrendered to. We need to start questioning these things. And everything can work nowadays because everyone has a voice now.
What’s something you wish you knew before you ever started as a designer?
Every design student is not prepared for finances. When they’re training you, they’re teaching you how to be a designer but if you want to be a brand or even a designer under houses, there is so much more than just about knowing how to design. The business, the understanding of what’s going on in the world, who are you designing for? What is your design purpose? You better make sure you make sense for people to know about you. Why do we need to know about you? We have never been shown these questions before. So that’s definitely something that I would say the business side, the understanding of the world, the understanding of the economy, the understanding of this mass structure we are in. You cannot do it all by yourself. Your designs can be phenomenal but it doesn’t make any sense if you don’t have a team, if you don’t know how to work with sales PR, you don’t know how to pay rent.
How do you evolve the signatures that people know you for and how are you using what you’re inspired by to creatively reach the next collection?
For all my collections, I carry a lot of what I’m passionate about which is I love to use something in nature and then use something quite extreme and put it together like a storyline; it could be about street culture, graffiti, it could even be about a wedding. My next collection is pretty much a story about how we find birds relevant as a muse and symbol to big moments in our life. It’s called ‘the murder of crows, the union of those, the flamboyance of flamingos.’ When it’s a wedding, you see a dove as symbolic of a union. When you see crows, it symbolizes bad luck, murder, or that something is dead just because they are a darker color bird. I love this contrast and how certain events in life or ideologies are just imposed onto animals, which are just unapologetically themselves. But this is what humans are incredible about. We see the beauty and then we interpreted it into something which is what my fashion is about. My way of seeing things and how I’m trying to create something new by interpretation. It will be genderless, not just about women’s wear, not just one size as well, which is something we have been working on.
How have issues with the supply chain affected you?
I believe bigger brands that really rely on the supply chain structure are very affected this year. A lot of things are closed down. Factories, suppliers, fabric suppliers, and many mills are in jeopardy because honestly, the older owners all want to retire anyway. I’ve worked with Nona Source, which is an LVMH program that sells the stock fabric that their big brands don’t use. It’s sustainable and great for designers like us where we do small to medium production. I wish people would see it also a great opportunity for you to reinvent yourself, to do things differently perhaps.
Is making beautiful things enough or must it serve some form of function in order to be useful?
It depends on what does beautiful means, don’t you think? For example, what does a movie do to people? Nothing, besides making money? A great movie can be so inspiring to many people. It’s a big investment and production but people look for inspiration. That for me is the definition of beauty. When it comes to functionality, it’s something that can co-exist or it can just be something that doesn’t need the function to support it. When we are looking for more than just to survive, we start questioning who we are as an entity, what can we do more? This is why the creative industry exists in the first place. It’s the significance of inspiring people to carry on and to give hope, dare I say, even in the world of capitalism.
