Asian, but made in America: fashion label inspired by the clothes founders’ immigrant mums used to wear

The founders of label Commission create looks inspired by the way their mums dressed in the ’80s and ’90s in Asia – but they’re mostly produced in New York
The label boasts stockists including online retailers Net-a-Porter and stores such as Browns in London – and will launch its own e-commerce platform next month

Fashion

Vincenzo La Torre

Published: 5:00am, 18 May 2020

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Led by a trio of handsome Asian-Americans – Jin Kay, who is Korean-American, and Dylan Cao and Huy Luong, both Vietnamese-Americans – fashion label Commission doesn’t like to tone down its roots.

“We’re based in New York but the story that we want to tell is Asia,” says Cao, unofficial spokesman for the brand, when we meet the designers in Paris during fashion week. “We grew up in the late ’80s and early ’90s in Asia until we were 18-19, and we constantly look back at the way our mothers used to dress and built their wardrobes; our construction, the details, the prints … come directly from our memories and what we saw growing up.”

Those memories, however, are not the clichés that fans of Wong Kar-wai films or of Chinese art often associate with Asia. The designers are instead drawn to the time when, thanks to a boom in manufacturing, some Asian economies experienced rapid growth. This new corporate culture saw many women, including the mothers of Kay, Cao and Luong, join the business world and come up with their own attempts at workwear that often mixed Asian and Western elements.

“Not many people fantasise about Asia during this time because to a lot of people it’s really dry and industrial – but that’s when we grew up so that’s the story we want to tell. We know it inside out, so it’s about looking from inside out rather than outside in,” says Cao.

A look from the autumn/winter 2020 collection by Commission.

The label’s autumn/winter 2020 collection, which the trio unveiled during New York Fashion Week and showed to buyers, editors and influencers as part of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers in Paris, France, is a case in point.

They began with a photo of Luong’s mother, who used to own a restaurant in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in the ’80s. The prints are inspired by the patterns on tablecloths, while the tailoring and outerwear – at which the trio excel – are throwbacks to the wardrobes of Kay and Cao’s mothers, who had more corporate jobs.

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Cao points out that immigrants in America often don’t want to look back to their pre-US days, and use fashion to assimilate into their current culture by giving up the clothes they used to wear in their home countries.

“A lot of women who’ve been through those eras back home don’t want to look like that any more after moving to the US,” he explains, referring to the Asian-American experience.

By looking at the staple clothing items their mothers used to wear back in the day and reworking them for the 21st century, the designers have created a wardrobe both timeless and modern that women can build on season after season.

“The first season was the purest version, our mums going to work, which is where the fanny pack came from,” says Kay. “We established the key pieces, and from there we built more print and detail – but at the core it’s the coat, the jacket, the mini skirt …”

The fanny pack, or bumbag, Kay is referring to is the one Vietnamese women fill with cash and snacks, and carry to the market or work while riding motorbikes. The designers translated that accessory into a functional zip pocket on the waist of their trousers and skirts, which has become a signature of sorts for the label.

The three young men, who attended Parsons School of Design in New York and worked for brands such as Gucci (Kay), 3.1 Phillip Lim (Cao) and Michael Kors (Luong), self-funded the company and produce everything in New York except some knitwear, which is made in Japan.

Commission denim jeans, which the label is making available on its own e-commerce website.

“Localising production is one of our goals. We started in New York, and it was our first exposure to the fashion industry and we learned the history of the garment district. It’s quite sad that so many factories in midtown Manhattan used to have so much work, and now everyone is going to Asia or China,” says Cao.

“We want to give the work back also because they have great skills and the turnaround is very fast. Also, it is more sustainable because you reduce all the shipping and back and forth.”

In just two years, the label has built a loyal following, and boasts stockists including online retailers Net-a-Porter and Ssense, and stores such as Browns in London. Amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, however, Commission – like many other independent labels – is pivoting to direct sales and is debuting its own e-commerce in June.

“The pandemic has changed our initial launch date from spring to early summer, which has given us more time to fine-tune and make sure that our platform can be solidified as much as possible,” the designers say in a follow-up statement. “As our lives have been altered deeply by Covid-19, it just seems appropriate to have delayed this launch to when restrictions start to ease up in many places, and all of us would have had some time to recoup our minds and slowly begin our recovery mode.

“We hope that the audience and market will be somewhat ready by the time the products go live.”

It’s certainly not an easy time for up-and-coming labels – especially in a saturated market like the United States – but those with a clear vision and point of view are likely to come out stronger.

(From left) Jin Kay, Dylan Cao and Huy Luong are the founders of Commission.

The key to Commission’s success will be translating its cult following into broader appeal, and the three founders have the chops and determination to do so. Their arrival bodes well for New York fashion, which has been in a bit of a lull lately and needs the energy and excitement that brands like Commission deliver.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Inside mum’s wardrobe

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