Markgong (Q3313)
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Markgong is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Markgong |
Markgong is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
The Shanghai collections kicked off this week but a visa snafu has left this reviewer grounded in New York for the time being. Still, one didn’t need to be in the room to catch the vibe at Mark Gong’s show, which officially opened the SHFW schedule on Thursday afternoon. Thanks to the magic of WeChat livestreams, and to the many friends reporting live on ground, the show’s setting was easily identified as the living room of one Charlotte York-Goldenblatt. (Formerly MacDougal, it must be said, as it was Trey MacDougal’s Park Avenue penthouse which Charlotte kept in the divorce that Gong recreated for this scene.)This spring collection was the fourth and final installment of Gong’s Sex and the City saga, which the designer focused on Charlotte, deliciously embodied by the actress Kristin Davis. Ask anyone “which SATC character are you?,”, and odds are no one will self-identify as her, as she was the most traditional, prim and prissy of the quarter—one could even call her demure. “I struggled in the beginning with choosing Charlotte as my last character,” said Gong via voice note following his show, “Charlotte was the perfect housewife with a perfect marriage and kids, but I used to find her cringe.”Gong’s “Gong Girls” are known for being youthful, playful, and freewheeling—the antithesis of Charlotte. It was this which compelled the designer to move forward with her as his muse. “I wanted to make it about the real Charlotte; her desires, and her wants. Basically if I was Charlotte, what would I do, and what would I want?”It’s a part of growing up to revisit people and characters like Charlotte and coming to understand their motivations and aspirations. Here, Gong revisited some of Charlotte’s biggest sartorial hits, sometimes literally—like the infamous vintage Valentino skirt her daughter Lily effectively destroyed with red paint—but mostly, to his credit, abstractly. There were cutesy knit sets and classy polka dots and ginghams on silk frocks and wool suitings. There were beautiful and intricate floral appliqués, lots of sharp tailoring, and a couple of fabulous LBDs. It was a decisively more mature lineup for the designer, and it found momentum and singularity where he dressed it down as a true Gong girl would; with graphic t-shirts worn under corsets, hot pants, sneakers, and sexy bralettes to go with otherwise soccer mom capris. His interpretation of the latter, with its mix of laid-back attitude and sultriness felt fresh and right on the money.
In the tailend of this “very mindful, very demure” online moment, Gong is asking the right question: I couldn’t help but wonder, was Charlotte the true breakout fashion star of the Sex and the City after all?
11 October 2024
Let’s set the scene: Miranda has just broken up with Steve, and is spending her first New Year’s Eve alone (alone with Chinese food—if you know, you know). Carrie is in her apartment sleeping when Miranda rings her to chat. “Auld Lang Syne” starts to play in the background, a tearjerker for those familiar withSex and the Citylore. Carrie throws on a fur coat and a sequin beanie over her pajamas, puts on a pair of sensible heels, and hops on the subway (yes, Carrie took the subway) in the midst of a snowstorm to head downtown. She knocks on Miranda’s door and hugs her just as the ball drops: “You’re not alone,” she whispers in her ear.Consider this fall lineup part two of Mark Gong’s contemporary reappraisal ofSex and the City. Last season, Gong looked at Samantha Jones and contextualized his collection within an imaginary interpretation of theVogueoffices at the World Trade Center. This time around, he found inspiration in a touching scene from the first SATC film, and modeled his show space on Central Park after a snowfall. “Fashion is supposed to be fun,” the designer said backstage. (There’s certainly something comedic about this reviewer flying 18 hours, give or take, to come right back to New York City—bring a piece of home everywhere you go, they say.)Gong has developed a brand of storytelling that hinges on his entertaining (and often viral) theatrics. After the show, a colleague noted that his collections have become more commercial over time. That’s a good thing. Gong has grown up, but he’s managed to keep things fun, while delivering a hit product or two.For fall, Gong riffed on Carrie’s look—plush fur coats over lush silky separates—adding his signature “Gong girl” cargos, denim suits, and going-out mini-dresses and blouses to the mix. He cut mean, wide shoulders, which were structured and protruding in his tailoring and caved-in on his buttery, cool-girl leather outerwear. The whole thing was styled to look a little messed up, very haphazardly thrown together, but it worked. “The idea is that you save your messy self for your best friends and for inside your home, but here they are wearing it out,” he said. The designer just went through a breakup of his own, and he explained that this collection was less an ode to Sarah Jessica Parker andSex and the Citythan it was to the real-life women who got him through that tough time.Gong aced the styling here.
He understands know just what young women want to wear, but also what they consider “grown up” dressing (a category where Carrie Bradshaw is an oracle). An overcoat held closed by the clutch of a hand, a humongous leather jacket thrown over a tiny going-out dress, a crewneck sweater worn over a dressy button-down shirt—these are the things twenty-somethings are doing to play up their “maturity.”“She’s supposed to be a little drunk,” Gong said, pointing at his board. “This one,” he quipped about the one model who walked the runway presumably listening to yet another voice note about her best friend going back to her ex, “she’s just over it, but she still shows up.” In life, you can either be a trouble maker or a lifesaver—the friend who is always in need of help or the one always willing to lend a hand. But both types will be well served by this Mark Gong collection.
26 March 2024
The New York working woman has been endlessly mythologized. Tess McGill and her shoulder pads epitomized the ’80s working girl, and Andy Sachs—sorry,Andrea—won over Miranda Priestly one good outfit at a time. But there’s no one like Samantha Jones, the endlessly memeableSex & the City“public relations executive, unmarried woman” that power-walked onto our screens in 1998 and never left our hearts. Kim Catrall’s Jones served as Mark Gong’s muse this spring. “Seeing Samantha Jones when I was a teenager just inspired me,” he said at a preview. “My admiration for women that are successful and self-reliant, who live their lives without apologizing, started with her, together with the dream of New York.”Gong, who is based in Shanghai but launched his brand in New York City as a Parsons graduate in 2018, is familiar with this particular character. He staged his show in an office—gray wall-to-wall carpet and venetian blinds included—and had each model scan a badge through a set of speed gates. His woman is assertive, not to be messed with, and ready for business. Her uniform is a fitted pencil skirt, a well-tailored jacket worn over the shoulders, and a tank top or tight fitting button-down and cardigan combo.To his credit, what Gong borrowed from Jones was less about her wardrobe than it was her ethos. This woman is sex positive, as proven by garters, stockings, panties, and a couple of alluring chiffon skirts. She is grown-up, as evidenced by her razor-sharp tailoring, deftly cut in sleek leather, wool, tweed—a designer favorite this week—and a fantastic red micro sequin fabric. And she is the boss, or dresses to look like it; even her basic cargo pants and distressed jeans are covered in sequins or hand-beaded crystal strands. Gong is 10 seasons in now, and Jones made a worthwhile muse. She helped him elevate his collection just enough, and provided an air of polish he should hold on to without doing away with his sense of humor.As a nod to Jones’s pal Carrie Bradshaw, Gong cut a mean “naked dress” in a flocked floral georgette doubled for extra opacity. He didn’t getcarriedaway with theSATCof it all here, but he did mold his signature 3D chrome sculptures to appear as scarves swept away by a city breeze. Gong didn’t need them in this lineup, though it’s easy to see why he included them. The first iteration went viral last season, and another was recently worn in a magazine by Olivia Rodrigo.
But as I sat there watching these fabulous-looking models enact a fantasy of the New York working woman, I had to wonder: Is the idea of the working girl uniform like the proverbial tree in the forest? Is it necessary in a world of remote work? In a city like New York where everyone isworkingbut not everyone has ajob, is the idea of an office uniform simply old-fashioned? Not for the Gong girl, and not for Gong—his proposal is compelling for its commitment to cool.
11 October 2023