Ryan Lo (Q7768)
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Ryan Lo is a fashion house from BOF.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Ryan Lo |
Ryan Lo is a fashion house from BOF. |
Statements
A collection centered around pastel-sweet and wildly layered poly-tulle faux-naïf-meets-Playboy-Bunny gowns might seem off-key when seriousness, sustainability, and sexual reckoning are among the prevailing winds of the moment. Yet given that Ryan Lo has had to put his plans to see his family and friends in Hong Kong for Easter on hold, this looked more like an admirable exercise in Keeping Calm and Carrying On.Lo talked about the women who wear him—Elle Fanning, Laura Bailey, Helena Bonham Carter—and riffed unapologetically through a candy crush of sickly sweet influences that ran from Sarah Jessica Parker’sSATCcredits skirt to Hugh Hefner’s highly dubious warren of women. “It might sound cheesy. But let’s talk about life, and getting the guy. All my girlfriends say that fashion is about escapism, about sex, about glamour, about looking pretty.” Reductive much? Well, not when you consider those Lo-wearing women and the powerful self-determination they emit. It also takes serious craft to make dresses so apparently unserious.Black and white layers of tulle under the hand-stitched panels, dyed tiers of Barbie pastels, and colorful sunset eddies created a sense of depth below the surface. His sometimes ironically positioned roses—boob bouquets—were hand-folded and arranged. The Stephen Jones bunny ears were, yes, references to a historical low in the commodification of gender relations, but you could argue that choosing to wear them is a reclamation of power. Lo’s flower-quilted black coats and boleros were saucy-widow, his quilted tabards jokey-jester, and so on. This is a designer who leans so knowingly into his articulation of now anachronistic gender stereotypes—the princess! The vamp! The ingenue! The dolly bird (which was the name of this collection)!—that it’s impossible to take anything but the skill displayed in their construction entirely seriously. This was a sugar-rush dose of extroverted clever/sexy/fun dressing, just perfect for the end of days.
13 February 2020
Ryan Lo’s clothes are unreal: They seem barely fit for the world. That’s less a criticism of this designer’s cutely rendered, sweetness-saturated vision of womanhood—romantic heroines bolstered by barrel curls and power lips—than it is of the mundane plane on which most of us live. Not Lo, though.The notes said Lo had been researching the work of Rune Naito, the illustrator whose work did much to establish the source code ofkawaii. Much of that was reflected in the melodrama of the presentation—a petal-strewn runway with a stained-glass backdrop—and the pretty-pretty throwback Victoriana worn by Lo’s models.Last season, Lo’s finale saw a knight in very literal shining armor walk down the aisle with his princess. This season, one thing led to another: As Andy Williams sang “Love Story,” the show opened with a male model in a hussar’s uniform pushing a Silver Cross pram alongside a female model in a Stephen Jones feather bearskin. Two further prams pushed by lone models would follow: Were they spurned, widowed, stay-at-home, or what? The collection opened with a black section (mournful), moved into white, and then bloomed into pink. Floral-quilt scallop-hemmed coats, ribboned bodices, and quilted skirts worn with puff-sleeve chiffon shirting made for darkly proper daywear. Floral-panel crocheted shawls that shivered with mohair fluff were worn over pink-and-white-petal jacquard skirts. The closing long, tiered, and finely ruffled lace numbers were highlykawaiiin their careful interplay of the prim and the provocative.
15 February 2019
To go as unreconstructed Romantic tradition as Ryan Lo did in this collection takes some chutzpah. This is #2018, after all. That closing walk of a full tulle-skirted, ostrich-garlanded princess bride alongside her milk-cheeked prince in breastplate and chain mail tights seemed destined for some postshow explain-it-away point about out-of-time gender politics. Instead, Lo totally meant it: “At the end of the day, it’s about getting the guy. That sounds really dated, I know . . . . But she’sCarrie Bradshaw! That’s my woman. She goes to the Serpentine Galleries party, to art openings. She’s the kind of woman who watches the royal wedding on the telly.”Lo turns 29 this week, and his collection was titled Saturn Returns, as celestial reflection of what the designer said was a turning point for him personally: the realization that he wants go big on tulle and pair his dresses with Gina pumps instead of sneakers. Full-on pretty, full-on princess, full-on fairy tale.Thus the various fairy godmothers in bewitching Stephen Jones millinery wielding vaguely pagan Harry Potter broomsticks, plus that fairy-tale ending. The dresses they punctuated were beautifully made ladywear: Edwardian-meets-prairie pieces heaped with ruffles, scallops, and pastel florals; puffed midi dresses in a polka dot jacquard that vaguely nodded to Yayoi Kusama; and full skirts that frothed with layered tulle and lace accented by wispy, skein-delicate crochet work. Simultaneously fantastic (the work) and anachronistic (the sentiment), this was Lo indulging both himself and his clients.
14 September 2018
This was high Lo—a collection, according to the designer, with “no theme, no mood board, and no show. It’s simply about everything I love.” Held in India Mahdavi’s pink-everywhere, ultra-upholstered interior at the restaurant Sketch, the presentation scattered models among mannequins, all attired as different variations of Lo-twisted archetypes. These spanned French maids in black lace to Princess Margaret in a cloud of tulle that enveloped a glittering jacquard sheath of pastel chevrons. A kung fu outfit featured pressed track pants with a squint-to-see-it butterfly pattern and was, Lo said, his own twist on a Hollywood interpretation of Chinese dress. The extraordinary Yayoi Kusama–catalyzed oversize pumpkin berets by Lo and Stephen Jones looked like costumes from a Mario Bros. scene inReady Player One. This designer’s archetypes are candy-cotton fantasy idealizations that are matched by fantastic fabrication: Lo says he takes pleasure in mixing hand-worked and machine-made elements plus synthetic and organic fabrics together in one untangle-able zhoosh. These dreamy, cloth-crafted alter egos should cry out to expressive fantasists who revel in looking (and feeling) something else.
19 February 2018
“Nobody does little black dresses anymore,” asserted Ryan Lo after his show this evening. Hmm. While that’s not in any way true, what’s for certain is that nobody makes them quite like Lo.This designer’s maximalist urges are normally expressed via a hyper-cutesy technicolor prism formed by the popular culture he imbibed growing up in Hong Kong. Today, he pivoted: His recent acquisition of British citizenship prompted him to take a long Lo look at the U.K. Sure, his press release cited a Korean soap opera and Japan’s Princess Mako of Akishino as stepping stones. Yet the section of girls wreathed in twists of pearls at the waist or across the body, sash-like, above white dresses or ruched strips of tulle and gold butterfly jacquard were ultra-Anglo, especially with eight-eye Doc Martens. A white oversized hoodie in tulle with a huge bow at the neck was even more so: festival couture.By stripping out a lot of Lo’s go-to color, color, and then more color, this monochrome collection allowed the impressive architecture to reveal itself. His LBDs and even his black school uniform suit were typically playful but seriously good looking. Not all color was rejected. Pink layered jacquard featuring dots and butterflies was cut into a long slip dress. A heavier pink jacquard became a fine ruffle-fronted dress with more layers of ruffle at the skirt and matching opera gloves. Some models carried hard patent handbags by Launer, the supplier of the same to the Queen, and Stephen Jones’s wonderful millinery referenced Ann Boleyn (those headbands turned eyemasks), Winston Churchill, and a veritable stovepipe that was an homage to Peter Pan. We were in a beautiful if slightly faded church, so the show closed with a bride. Watching Lo tone down much of his maximalist aesthetic was fascinating and bore results that should broaden his commercial appeal.
15 September 2017
According to the show notes resting on the seats at Ryan Lo’s show this morning, the designer’s key reference this season was the recently-defunct Japanese style magazineFruits, a publication that can claim a good deal of the credit for the international fame of the cute-as-pie, uber-consuming Harajuku girl. Eek! This seemed like exactly the wrong direction for Lo to go: After all, Lo’s taste for the cute already trips into the territory of the diabetically sweet, and his collections tend to proffer such a hyper-abundance of elements, even a Harajuku girl would be tempted to complain of sensory overload. The fact that this collection also marked the launch of Lo’s new Hello Kitty collaboration didn't augur well, either.Well, what do reviewers know? For Lo, going into the heart of lightness had a focusing effect. For all this collection’s froth—and there was plenty—this was actually a pretty tightly edited affair, with a few key silhouettes and fabrications reiterated routinely enough that they made a firm, positive impression. Short ruched, rose-embellished dresses in a star-spattered camouflage silk had an unexpected sense of insouciance, thanks to their slightly slack shape; long intarsia knit sweaters had a goofy panache; Lo’s frilled blouses and tiered midi skirts had an accessible charm, cute-lite, you might say. Even the Hello Kitty looks weren’t as all-outkawaiias you expected them to be—and Lord, wouldn’t it be refreshing to see one of Lo’s Hello Kitty print gowns on the red carpet at the Oscars next week?The strongest items here, though, were Lo’s shearling jackets. Super saturated in color, fleece-y in texture, they boasted extra grace notes in the form of shapes (hearts, stars) that Lo had sheared into them. That was, by comparison with some of the collection’s flash and frou, a quiet idea. But it had force.
18 February 2017
Upon landing in London, a fashion editor is greeted by a mountainous stack of show invites. This season, after tearing open approximately zillions of envelopes, it was hard not to mourn the absence of one particular invitation. Meadham Kirchhoff, you are missed. The beloved, now-defunct brand casts a long shadow in London. Many young designers here picked up the torch, infusing recognizably Meadham-esque elements into their own, otherwise disparate aesthetics. It's as though Meadham Kirchhoff is turning into the Velvet Underground of British fashion: Not many people went to the shows, but every person who did started a label.The Meadham Kirchhoff influence could be felt very keenly at this afternoon'sRyan Loshow. Lo put his own spin on these MK-signature themes with Baroque flourishes, a camp take on girlishness, and baby doll silhouettes, but it was hard to avoid comparison. And once the comparison was made, not to miss the note of venom present in even the seemingly sweetest Meadham Kirchhoff shows. There's no venom in Lo. His tone is sweet through and through; that much was made plain in this collection's variety of flounced and ruffled frocks. Lo's scalloped lace numbers and abbreviated party dresses in pink, lavender, or black-and-white floral brocade were beautifully finished and undeniably appealing, but they had about as much edge as a swirl of buttercream frosting. Lo did better with his frothy metallic knits—his facility with the material inspired those looks with a real sense of authority.Even so, Lo does seem to be seeking his edge, which was reflected in his exploration of both mixed prints and exaggerated silhouettes this season. The experiments, however, weren't a success. The oversize intarsia sweaters looked clunky, and while the oddball silk prints he chose to elaborate this season's wanderlust theme were intriguing, they were diminished by their deployment in mystifying pieces like the show-closing blouson jumpsuit. It's good to see Lo venturing out of his safety zone and making nervily un-pretty clothes, but it was difficult to picture a woman wanting to wear these clothes. You certainly wouldn't say that about his sugary frocks, but a touch of spice would have made them a bit more interesting.
16 September 2016
Cuteis really hard to make convincing, as a fashion tone. Ryan Lo, one of the London fashion scene’s bright young things, has sometimes struggled to make good on his promise by dint of a predilection for adorability so pronounced it often comes across as camp. It’s not camp, though. Lo is completely sincere in his frothiness. What made the collection he presented today something of a departure was that, for all the froth, there was a sense of undertow. Lo was bouncing off the theme of Chinatown, and as a designer who originally hails from Hong Kong, the reference was personal enough that it allowed him to gird his confections with references that felt sharply specific.The clearest examples of that sense of specificity were the collection’s quilted satin jackets and coats. Speaking after the show, Lo said that he was riffing on the pajamas worn by Chinese women, an allusion that another designer, working the same theme, might never have made. The blossom embroidery on the swishy felted-wool dresses had a similarly obscure inspiration, deriving from the prints Lo remembered seeing in Hong Kong on bedsheets.There was also a matter-of-factness to many of these garments that helped to ground the show. A grandpa cardigan bearing a graphic lobster pattern had a shrugged-on, streetwise mien, while the boyish trousers with contrast-colored legs gave a bit of a kick to these otherwise sturdy staple items. This offering had its feet on the ground, more or less, which made the flashes of silliness feel earned. There was a real charm to Lo’s odd, squidlike faux furs, while the full-on froth of his bunched tulle frocks recalled the guilty pleasures of a decadent dessert. This collection was sweet, to be sure, but it had savor, too.
19 February 2016
Ryan Loexpressed his yen for maximalist cutesiness through a series of treacly-sweet tropes of Valentine’s schtick, anime superheroes, and fairy-tale archetypes in this tasty sugar rush of a collection. The frills kept coming, frolicking up jersey socks, trousers, and dresses, cavorting hither and thither in crema whorls against printed jersey. Heaped-on jewelry and lost-in-the-forest mussed-up hair added entirely unnecessary but hey-why-not drama and flash.Acid pick-and-mix intarsia knits with punctuations of knot were the looser, sometimes anguish-touched exhalations. There were heaps of craft, passion aplenty, and reams of reference that Lo’s note writer, Susie Lau, reported featured “sweet Kiki from Hayao Miyazaki’sKiki’s Delivery Serviceand the kawaii witches from Ryan’s childhood favesSugar Sugar RuneandMagical DoReMi.” Harajuku heaven.
22 September 2015