Five things you may not know about Ximon Lee, Hong Kong-raised designer who’s wowing the fashion crowd
Ximon Lee’s autumn/winter 2017 collection was unveiled on the catwalk at London Fashion Week ... and the much travelled, widely hailed young designer nailed it. This is his story
2. A year after graduating in 2014 in menswear from Parsons School of Design in New York, Lee landed the coveted H&M Design Award, the first menswear designer to do so. He won US$50,000 and the opportunity to develop pieces from his collection to be sold in selected H&M stores and online. The collection – remember, he was born on the Russian border – was inspired by a Russian documentary about homeless children in the depths of winter in the post-Soviet era. The film reminded him of his early childhood and the town where he was born.
3. A conceptualist, he refers to his collections as “studies”. “I like exploring something [one season], reflecting on what was not good enough and taking that as a lesson to bring into the next ‘study’ (season).” His first collection, the one that won him the H&M Design Award, was in layered denim, plastic and cardboard, used in exaggerated shapes. His latest has the title “Shame” and is about revealing and concealing parts of the body with pearls and deconstructed leather bras (for men).