The presentation is but one thing Wang and I discussed.
There wasthere isa lot going on in his world.
What follows is a conversation that has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
Photo: Courtesy of Alex Wang
An exclusive look into the Alexander Wang pre-fall 2024 collection.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
Alex, Id like to start with where your brand is in the here and now, in 2024?
An exclusive look into the Alexander Wang pre-fall 2024 collection.
Im the youngest of three siblings.
My parents came here [to the US] in 1973.
They had a very different life.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
I started to put together the puzzle, and I was like: You know what?
It was a combination of everything.
And the brand was something that was so… it had been the center of my world.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
It was a big maturing moment.
Was the rebrand in some way a move to separate Alexander Wang the person from Alexander Wang the brand?
When I was younger, more selfishly I would say, OKIamthe brand.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
It was always what I wanted to do: Every collection, every event.
It was just what came instinctively.
Paula said [to me], If you get hit by a car tomorrow, what happens afterwards?
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
[The brand] was my safe space.
The rebrand was a moment when, again, I had to grow up.
I am so over seeing that.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
And in a certain way, we kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater.
But then I was like, wait, those are things I should own and be really proud of.
When I think of the most successful brands, theyre almost memeable.
Alexander Wang, pre-fall 2024.
What are the things that stick in a consumers mind without a second guess?
I realized that we are no longer the new kid on the block.
But at the same time, its a businesshow do we keep our customers engaged with whats happening?
Alexander Wang, spring 2018 ready-to-wear
How do we take something familiar and make it new?
What is it about our denim and t-shirt dressing?
The studs, the cut-out heels, the hardware, the metal?
Alexander Wang, fall 2012 ready-to-wear
What did I have a connection to?
You mentioned that you were the brand, which was truebut so was the community you attracted to it.
That notion of a designer with a community was rare at that time.
Alexander Wang, fall 2011 ready-to-wear
We expect it, take it for granted, now.
There werent other gay kids at school.
Moving to New York determined to work in fashion was always my way of trying to find a community.
Alexander Wang, fall 2022 ready-to-wear
I wanted the lifestyle, and I created it in my own sense of where I wanted to belong.
And nightlife was a big part of it.
And then I thought,Maybe I am just out of it for so long I dont actually know.
Alexander Wang, spring 2020 ready-to-wear
Do I really want to go to that nightclub that I was going to 20 years ago?
Maybe I dont really belong there.
Every once in a while, if there is a big DJ playing, Ill go to Brooklyn Mirage.
Alexander Wang, fall 2023 ready-to-wear
Ive not turned against going out, but I dont need to do it every weekend.
Aging: It comes to us all.
I mean, thats what this evolution comes down to in partage, yes?
Everyone has always spoken about my age and starting the line so young.
But what I was so interested in was youth culture.
There was a big internal dialogue about shifting what felt authentic to me.
It was discipline, because there wasnt so much of that when it was a family-run business.
How has that been?
Im sure it is emotional to some degree.
It wasit was a very bittersweet moment.
We dont have to have disagreements [about work], you know what I mean?
Id like to chat with you about the presentation on June 5th, in New York.
What can you tell me about that?
I should give some context [to it].
So I thought, You know whatlets go back to SoHo, where we started.
Your shows were such a huge fixture on the NYFW schedule.
Do you miss doing them at allor is it a relief to be off of the treadmill?
Its a relief, but I also do miss it.
I still go back and just watch the videos, and I always wish I had recorded more footage.
I loved that energy and that rush.
But the industry is so different now.
Very rarely is there a spontaneity to someones presence.
It still happens with younger designers, which is always exciting to see.Beyonce going to Luars last showthats exciting.
Who, out of interest, do you like in New York right now, Alex?
I love seeing that.
Do you think its possible to be in the US now and achieve global success?
Is that something that can still happen here?
Im hopeful for it.
There has definitely been a shift back to Europe.
And I feel that has to be protected and nourished.
I mentioned community earlier.
Is it still important to you?
Its now more customer-centricI think thats the way people participate with brands now.
But my life has changed so much.
My friends are older.
A lot of them arent going out.
And nightlife has changed.
A lot of time on the weekends these days I am just cooking.
Can we speak a little more about that?
You mentioned earlier everything that had happened: the allegations, family.
Whats your comfort level with being front and center?
I think it is something that Im still…
I havent settled my mind on it yet.
Our business is the strongest it has been.
[Since then] a lot of things have changed in my life.
Im in a relationship; our one-year anniversary is today.
That has been a change in your life.
What has it meant to you?
On weekends, I never wanted to leave the city.
I lived in SoHo, and I was always there.
We went out every week.
Then COVID happened and everyone moved out of the city, and I felt alone.
Its like finding a new speed: Theres a slower pace to life, and that feels right.
Even when I wasnt working, I was working.
That was so ingrained in how I functioned I wasnt thinking twice.
I didnt want to wake up hungover every Saturday.
So, yeah, Im gardening, and it sounds so cliche.
Would you like to have kids?
No comment [laughs].
Id actually like to go 10 years back, almost, to when you started at Balenciaga.
[Wang was creative director at the French house from 2013 to 2015.]
I wanted to see what I could learn from it.
I knew that I would go home and take back what I learned.
What was the best and worst thing about doing it?
In my own company, maybe I was spoiled to be able to challenge that status quo.
What about your favorite collections you did for Balenciaga?
The last one, which was all in whiteand the punk/ladylike one with all the sprayed coats.
Did you ever think that maybe you should have stayed longer?
I never got an apartment there.
I think that was the thing.
I had no one to hang out with.
When my term was up, I was like, Okay, Im ready to go home.
Asia has become your main market.
Id be interested to hear about that.
Our second flagship after New York was Beijing.
And then you realize thats not going to work, so we had to localize what we do.
We want to push ideas, but we also have to be sensitive to that.
My mom lives in Shanghai, so I half grew up there.
Id like to switch gears a bit and ask about provocationcreating that pop-cultural frisson.
It was something you and the brand did a lot.
What was that about?
Putting them all together in one video, I dont think were really fooling anyone.
It is us saying, Hey, we always say we take our work seriously, but not ourselves.
humors been at the heart of the brand from the very, very beginning.
It was like, OKwhats real and whats fake?
How did you cast them?
Are they all in New York, or are they scattered across the world?
Theyre all scattered internationally, globally.
That, to me, felt more provocativeor depending on your viewpoint, controversial even.
Is this something that we would want to see?
I think thats really what we always go after.
I was like, What if we reinterpreted me as this male/female AI version and real/fake thing?
And a lot of my friends were getting pregnant….
I mean, theres obviously a line sometimes.
Especially in social media, its very hard to do things that are creative because everyone can say something.
We want to ensure: Hey, has our agency looked this over?
Do they feel theres anything that’s too controversial here?
Is this going to be interpreted a different way?
We have to tell a story in a very big sense, and take those risks.
We just thought it was an interesting tension with a creative integrity behind it.
Its like the internetif youre going to ignore the internet, you might as well move to the countryside.
