Warning. Adults only. Greeted by the sound of clashing of metallic guitar and tribal drumming, warning – adults only was an understandable outcry for the likes of Xander Zhou.
The Beijing based designer spring/summer 2017 collection saw hell raiser’s of the street parade down this season’s London collection for men is fury of camo, patent leather, primary colour tones and plenty of flesh, with blood shot eye makeup and sexed up bed hair showing how bad the bad boy really can be.
As if to mark Zhou’s contrasting design training of industrial and fashion design, models were seen in looks of proportion experimentation, with cropping of tops and lengthening of sleeves used to compliment enlarged waists of jeans that clung to the boys hips and mid-rift – in one particular look, an enlarged double breasted mac was seen to carry grown on oversized removable sleeves, creating an image of a young child trying on his dad’s work jacket and trying to make it fit.
And maybe this is the image Zhou wished to portray – the idea of a youngster trying to grow up in the city of concrete but not really fitting in and becoming the misfit, the bad boy gone bad – as the show closed with groups of boys stomping in pack’s of fours in front of the audience, viewers were imposed with the idea of an army of rebels, the hell raisers of a concrete jungle coming out to play.
Words by Jasmine Banbury
Images by Georgia Sillitoe
