Babyghost (Q3811)
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Babyghost is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Babyghost |
Babyghost is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
The pandemic didn’t slow down Babyghost. In fact, the brand’s see-now-buy-now fall 2020 collection is just a taste of how co-designer Josh Hupper spent his time in lockdown; he also flexed his skills cooking French toast and playing video games. But sketching was still his main creative outlet, and Hupper said he designed his biggest collection ever during the shutdown. (His spring 2021 collection is already completed and will be shot this year.)As for the collection arriving in stores now, film is a consistent source of inspiration for Hupper. He stitched Hitchcockian references into this season’s lineup, most notably a sheer twist on Eva Marie Saint’s iconic rose gown in “North by Northwest.” Hupper said Marissa St. Clair’s acclaimed book about near-death experiences, “Beyond The Light,” also influenced his frame of mind for fall. “Our clothing is really cute, but there is a darker twist, just like our name,” he smiled.Oversized was the predominant silhouette this season, a trend that’s taken off in our moment of comfort dressing. Hupper and his co-designer, Qiaoran Huang, gave classic tailoring modern twists, like lace hems and deep-V necklines. The duo also introduced dresses, vests, and sweaters in a new dynamic knit, a growing category for the brand and a practical option for cooling weather.When the pandemic hit, Babyghost was at an advantage with it’s already-established online following; it made their transition to a mostly-digital world quite seamless. Hupper and Huang are now experimenting with a “drop” model to keep their fans on their toes: Between seasons, they’ll release a series of small capsule collections and one-off pieces, which will quickly vanish into the closets of Babyghost die-hards.
8 October 2020
Dropping this month, Babyghost’s see-now-buy-now spring 2020 collection is grown up but definitely not old. This season codesigners Qiaoran Huang and Joshua Hupper channeled new-vintage nods from the late ’80s and early ’90s through a modern lens—one that they have focused on their multifaceted global girls, taking them from the cubicle to the club. In terms of inspiration, Hupper pointed to not one but many turning points for this outing, including ideas sparked in fittings, Jonathan Glazer’sSexy Beast,and rereadingDior by Diorfor the third time.For a brand that sells a majority of its hip clothing to women between the ages of 25 and 35 online, it is shockingly connected to the consumer in a tangible way. Over the past year, it has increased its digital interaction with customers through a real online shopping assistant (who can try on pieces and advise on purchases), and it is also narrowing in on sustainability by making fewer products based on real numbers, which is improving business and profit. IRL, the duo debuted their favorite new spring 2020 looks at an intimate show in Shanghai, put on for close friends and clients earlier this year.Speaking of their streetwear Shanghai girl, she would definitely be into the robe printed with African necklaces made out of safety pins, to throw on between dawn and dusk. But for a busier day, “blazers and dress shirts are our bread and butter,” Hupper mused. The mixed-print mini shift dresses and oversize jackets were equally timeless and trendy. Compared to seasons past, this collection offered more bright colors and wearable patterns but didn’t stray too far from the designers’ signature edge.Layering is something Babyghost translates very well for every occasion. The knit cardigans in V-neck and oversize styles will give the label’s girl a bit more comfort (and warmth) while keeping it cool. “Sometimes people ask me, “So what does it mean to be a cult brand?’” Hupper said before offering a quick reply: “It’s the perfect spot where enough people know about you but not too many.” A spot Babyghost seems to successfully settle in season after season.
9 February 2020
Growing up often goes like this: Your brain expands tenfold, and suddenly you’re angry all the time. Maybe you get a severe haircut. Maybe you lean into some eccentricity in your personal style. For the first few years of Babyghost, designers Joshua Hupper and Qiaoran Huang designed clothes for those moments in your life, when you wanted to be your baddest and weirdest self. But for Spring 2020, they grew and mellowed out. Now in their tenth year, the duo has learned how to make clothing that sells, but in the process, they may have lost a little bit of the spark that made their first few years so exciting, fearless, and freaky.Hupper called this collection “our ‘first job’ collection,” referring to the fact that this was the first time they really felt like this was a job, not a side project, in part due to the line’s commercial success. These were buyer-driven “work clothes” for gainfully employed current and former club kids. That isn’t to say they were your typical 9-to-5 pieces. Inspired by Anne Desclos’sStory of O, Naomi Watts’s character inFunny Games, and the first Nine Inch Nails EP, Hupper and Huang worked in a few subtle nods to bondage. Two “wedding dresses” made the cheeky point that marriage is a form of bondage in its own way, and there was a neon blue Chinese wedding certificate printed on a shirtdress, styled with a cozy, tiger-print cardigan.If you separate those references from the collection itself, these were relatively easy, straightforward clothes you could wear to work or to a rave. The motorcycle jackets, puffers, creamy knits, and technical dresses felt like clothes meant to be lived in, with less experimentation than Babyghost’s past collections. Wearability shouldn’t be discounted here, but the changes amounted to a less stimulating collection on the whole. Babyghost has matured with time, but Hupper and Huang should try to find more of a middle ground, with an eye to their past informing their present.
18 September 2019
The vibe was noticeably different at Babyghost this season. Designers Joshua Hupper and Qiaoran Huang presented a see-now-buy-now Spring 2019 collection that was almost unrecognizable as their own because of its sweetness. Titled “The Secret Garden,” the lineup was inspired by the novel of the same name, written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Hupper and Huang watched the 1993 film version of the story for the first time together, and while they were moved by the imagery of the romantic florals and landscapes throughout the movie, their reference was more metaphorical than anything else.The designers are, more than ever before, wanting to show the fashion world that they’ve got their own hidden aesthetic buried under the quirky-cool streetwear they’ve become known for over the last eight years. They let it out for spring, and the result was a highly feminine range of sleepwear and lingerie-inspired pieces decorated with rose-bush prints and patterns borrowed from stained glass.Hupper was quick to point out that there weren’t a lot of tees or hoodies included this time around, with a focus instead on silk, lightly washed denim, and sharply tailored suiting and shirting. Hupper and Huang were smart to shift their M.O. away from sub-culture-focused fashion and onto something more accessible for a wider audience. They’re opening up and showing a softer, more vulnerable side, and that’s a great secret to start sharing.
13 February 2019
The casting of an 8-year-old girl in Babyghost’s Fall 2018 lookbook was not a random afterthought. Joshua Hupper and Qiaoran Huang chose her to model their non-kids’ line because of her age: She’s been alive as long as the designers have had their label. Eight years is a long time in this business. When they launched, the hypebeasts and underground club kids hadn’t yet infiltrated the high-fashion realm. There weren’t lines around the block to get into Kith, and Virgil Abloh was still deejaying for Kanye West. Babyghost was one of the first brands to fuse streetwear with high-fashion design concepts, and sell it at an affordable price. Today, they’re continuing to evolve that aesthetic with a see-now-buy-now approach. This collection was actually less about recognizable pieces like their riffs on the Versace and Chanel logos and their cool hoodies and tees.Instead, Huang and Hupper focused on richer fabrics and prints, on pieces like a midnight blue velvet coat with oversize sleeves and a pastel floral jacket layered under a beautifully tailored blazer. The knitwear was impressive too, especially a baggy red-and-green cami top and a cropped cardigan. The graphic T-shirt printed with the words “faux is over” was clever and ironic, but not totally necessary when there were so many other pieces that really highlighted Huang and Hupper’s talents as designers. Babyghost is an OG member of the crafty, underground streetwear movement and as this collection indicated, they’re only getting better with age.
12 September 2018
A Chinese-American label with a thing for obscure pop-culture references, Babyghost caters to a young, enthusiastic fan base that increasingly finds its wares irresistible. At the top of the referential food chain for Spring (they’ve adopted the see-now-buy-now method, so Fall will have to wait until Fall) sits the Winter Olympics, which begins shortly in nearby South Korea, hence the Corinthian-column print and hand-painted five-ring motif. But elsewhere, allusions to the latestAlienmovie, one of few Western releases to reach Chinese audiences, cropped up too, as did New York artist Andres Serrano’s controversial ’80s photographs. The idea is to stoke a sense of intensity, but with safe, smoothed edges.As designers Qiaoran Huang and Joshua Robert Hupper explained during a walk-through presented on models who included friend of the label and Insta-girl-of-the-moment Xiao Wen Ju, Babyghost does not aspire to high-rolling luxury status. Rather, they make accessible pieces that speak to discerning millennials. Spring appears to be the label’s most developed collection to date, an effervescent nod to team spirit—think lightweight nylon and silk jackets, loose track pants, and boxing shorts—in a bubbly Champagne palette. One oversize off-white jacket with raw edges was “just dirty enough,” said Hupper, while another jacket had a shirt stitched right into it. A sideways graffiti logo hinted at Stussy’s now-classic original, while printed silk linings and chiffon scarves are another way Babyghost can communicate directly with customers, like a “secret language,” said Huang.Through this combination of quirk and charm, Babyghost is carving out a covetable niche, mostly online and mostly in China, where business is apparently booming—if a move into a sprawling new showroom in Shanghai is any indication. Their branding efforts and special projects, too, are not the things one might expect. For instance, they staged a Christmas-theme event in a Shanghai mega-mall and produced splashy videos for Tmall, a trendy division of e-tail powerhouse Alibaba. The rise of the Chinese middle class is calling out for homegrown labels to embrace; Babyghost seems well-positioned to fit the bill.
8 February 2018
Babyghost designers Qiaoran Huang and Joshua Hupper—who met in 2009 while working at Diane von Furstenberg for then-designer Nathan Jenden and formed their own label a year later—are attempting the conquest of all conquests. They’re tackling the colossal Chinese streetwear market, and they’re doing it through social media. They have a few things going for them. First, they’re fortunate in that their e-shop is operable there (in spite of the Great Firewall of China). Plus, they’ve been able to tap into the supermodel power of Xiao Wen Ju, Liu Wen, and Fei Fei Sun to help grow their American and Chinese social platforms, which are very much separate.Still, eschewing traditional retailers in favor of e-commerce is a risky move to be sure. As is their new see-now-buy-now strategy—this collection was Fall 2017, not Spring 2018. But with studios in both New York and Shanghai (“We’re exporting cool from both places,” said Hupper) and a push toward affordability and salability, Babyghost has a real shot at becoming one of the first new-gen Asian brands, or at least half Asian, to break through onto a global stage. If that happens, it will be because of choosy, savvy Chinese millennials. They’re calling the shots now.Stylistically, Babyghost straddles Western edge and Chinese pop. At the presentation tonight, street-cast models—many of them the designers’ friends and fans—sat about in casual repose, as teens do, while an atmospheric short film premiered (video iseverythingon social media), directed by Van Alpert and starring, again, Xiao Wen Ju. It followed the supe as she traipsed about non-touristy parts of China wearing light puffer pieces, oversize sweats, relaxed pinstripes, quirky cable-knits, and various on-trend pops of randomness, like a magic mushroom print. A jumbo cat print, too, featured prominently, because there’s no denying that cats own the Internet right now, no matter the continent.
13 September 2017
“Indigo children”—kids of the ’70s thought by New Agey types to possess otherworldly, even psychic, abilities—were Joshua Huppert and Qiaoran Huang’s starting point for Spring. And at this morning’s dim sum breakfast–slash-presentation (live-streamed via Weibo), many of the street-cast models who sat around in the brand’s clothing, tucking into mooncakes, looked like just kids themselves.There has always been something fundamentally authentic about the Babyghost take on youth and subculture. Bicontinental, operating between New York and Shanghai, the brand embodies something of the eclecticism of both those cities. But it also takes inspiration from its fans—chief among them the Babyghost muse, model and de facto brand ambassadorXiao Wen Ju, who has styled past collections. This season, the duo continued to crowd-source inspiration, responding to feedback from young interns and allowing models to take an active role in styling their respective looks—even mixing in non-Babyghost items from their own closets.As for the nitty-gritty of the collection itself: Hupper and Huang took the indigo associated with the collection’s titular children and ran with it, dyeing denim in different tones, and sending out inky blue bombers, trousers, et al. If Spring ’17 doesn’t feel like the most classically “spring-y” of offerings, then bear in mind that for Babyghost’s key markets, these deliveries are hitting stores when there’s still a wintry chill in the air. The collection featured texture galore: fishnet stockings (the label’s first accessory to hit production), vaporous silks, and luxe-looking jacquard. Graphics, a consistently strong suit for the brand, felt especially focused here: baroque artworks; a big, beautiful embroidery, which nodded to the poster for the cult Japanese horrorHausu; a new, glow-in-the-dark label (featuring the creepy kids ofVillage of the Damned); and a killer ripstop parka whose hood bore at the center a take on Dalí’s storiedThe Eye of Time.
7 September 2016
Jin shais a Chinese practice—the repair of broken jade using pure gold. It’s a beautiful idea, and atBabyghost’s Fall presentation it yielded some nice results, as designers Joshua Hupper and Qiaoran Huang plumbed the possibilities of deconstructing and reconstructing some of their best-selling styles (“glamorous glue,” Huppert laughed, referring to the Morrissey single of the same name). It was a nicely introspective move from the duo, which yielded salable takes on the label’s softly streetwear-tinged aesthetic.The designers stripped out the lining of a previous jacket, and turned it a topper, lined with a gorgeous marbleized print they made themselves. Elsewhere were cut-up and stitched-together tees, and patchwork skirts in lace and devore. Indeed, nods to’90s grunge (à la Marc for Perry Ellis)coursed through the collection, with its long, floor-skimming silhouettes, combat boots, boyfriend cardigans, and a nicely peculiar shade that we’ll call “defiled lilac.” There were patterns aplenty, too: pixelated-looking sequins, plaids, and polka dots, to say nothing of some of the strongest graphic tees the label has shown to date (“Babyghost is the light of the world,” read one matter-of-factly, while another very commendably listed, movie-credits style, the employees who manufacture the label’s garments). It’s undeniable that there was an emphasis here on styling—catwalker-cum-Babyghost stylistXiao Wen Juwas out of town, so Hupper and Huang gamely took on the task of mapping out this season’s looks themselves—but the clothes brought plenty to the table, even solo.
14 February 2016
On a flight not long ago, Babyghost designersJoshua HupperandQiaoran Huang, seated separately, both watchedUltrasuede. The Halston documentary set their minds to the idea of making a Spring collection in homage to the great man. Still, Hupper says the two were fully aware of their potential to get overzealous, so rather than going full-throttle Studio 54, this season they asked themselves: “What if we were trying to do this Halston collection for the Gap?”That idea didn’t necessarily come through so much in the final product (Babyghost’s clothes have plainly too much of a point of view and too much idiosyncrasy to channel Gap in any palpable way), but it seemed to serve them well.Despite the season, this was a deliciously Goth-y lineup, light in feel if not in reference. The duo was inspired by “Death,” Clarence E. Flynn’s poem personifying the Big Sleep as a friendly force (“Why do you fear me?” it begins. “I am your friend”). So much so, in fact, that it came stitched in its entirety, along with an elegiac-looking depiction of Death on sheer tops and frocks. Most beautiful of all was on the transparent front panel of a twill skirt; the undersides of its seams came dappled with gold lamé spots in a nod to Halston. The designers resisted other direct ’70s references in favor of that and the transparent confetti-filled (that’s Studio 54, natch) buttons on a printed shirt.All those were nice feats unto themselves, but still, Babyghost’s most commendable move this season was one of self-awareness. Hupper: “We want to make clothing [girls] want, not clothing we want them to wear.” That meant wisely continuing to pare back the disparate graphic elements that have characterized Babyghost in seasons past in favor of bewitching, more basic pieces. The pair also debuted a lower-priced range, dubbed Stashhouse (muse, stylist, and Babyghost international playgirlXiao Wen Juwas wearing one of the bombers at last night’s presentation). It was the kind of strong effort that left you, if not undaunted by the reaper, keen to see what next season will bring.
13 September 2015
What a difference a season can make. Sure, Babyghost is idiosyncratic enough to distinguish itself from most other brands today. Josh Hupper and Qiaoran Huang are a pair of bicontinental magpies (in the best sense), plucking inspiration from chopper culture andTrue Detectivefor Spring '15, and turning out clothes tough, flirty, and streetwear-tinged. But where their last offering felt, in places, perhaps a touch one-dimensional, leaning heavily as it did on graphics, Fall found the designers diversifying their offerings where both shape and fabrication were concerned. Inspired by interiors, fromThe Shining's Overlook Hotel to Home House, a Georgian manse belonging to Elizabeth, Countess of Home (whose debauched parties earned her the sobriquet "Queen of Hell"), Hupper and Huang churned out pieces in tapestries, flocked lace, and taffeta. Upping the ante in terms of materials made a world of difference in overall appeal. The season's styling came courtesy of Babyghost muse, catwalk star, and pro facemaker Xiao Wen Ju, and included mash-ups of the sporty and sweet every bit as playful as she is. The effect? Youthful, but not unyieldingly so. That omnipresent Babyghost edge kept things in check. To wit, a standout black bomber that read "Revenge" across the back. It will do double duty as street-style bait for those so inclined, but it'll also be a surefire hit for stockists like VFiles.
19 March 2015
Babyghost is the fledgling bi-continental brand from Chinese Qiaoran Huang and American Josh Hupper, both of whom interned at Diane von Furstenberg; Hupper then went on to design at Thakoon. In 2010 they formed Babyghost, a playful, streetwear-leaning range with a particular eye to the tension of the girlish and the hard-edged. In the brand's Spring offering, polka dots and multi-hued lace played alongside graphics inspired by chopper culture and tattoo artist Troy Denning. There were sweet dresses—like a kicky number in denim and a wide-neck body-con—and elsewhere slick black jerseys printed with skulls that harked back to another Babyghost Spring touchstone:True Detective.Some of the simplest propositions here were the most successful: an oversize white button-down edged in polka-dot trim, and a plaid bomber that, on closer inspection, was dappled with leopard spots. They were at once charming and sinister—not unlike doll-faced Xiao Wen Ju in the brand's Spring video, toting a gun and taking aim at cherished cartoon characters. Xiao is a walking endorsement for Babyghost, as she is often spotted in street-style shots wearing the label. Fellow countrywoman Liu Wen has also been seen in the brand's clothes. While the bulk of Babyghost's business is in China at this point, the designers are making a strong bid for the American market, and it's currently stocked at VFiles' Mercer Street brick-and-mortar outpost. With friends like these, only good things are on the horizon for Babyghost.
14 October 2014