AUTUMN WINTER 2023

[ FORMLESS FORM ]

The RUOHAN AW23 collection draws inspiration from soil as a conceptual metaphor, tracing back to the original purpose of clothing and investigating the fundamental nature of its existence. As clothing interacts with the human body, it becomes an integrated part of the wearer. While tangible through its physical composition, clothing is even more intangible due to its ever-changing nature.

This collection poses the question: what shapes do soil and garments exist in?Represented by soil, nature gives rise to round shapes such as seeds, stumps, fruits, and stars, while human intelligence, represented by garments, gives rise to square shapes such as bricks, furniture, buildings, and digital products. The Chinese proverb “tian yuan di fang”—which translates literally to “square earth and spherical heaven”—portrays the idea of static and dynamic attitudes towards existences of beings, where there is mutual transformation and interdependence between the two. The brand’s answer is the “perfect square,” which represents precision in making intangible things tangible through rules endowed by people.

Starting with the square, this collection deconstructs and cuts garments to tangibly present the intangible. The brand explores the transformation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from plane to stereoscopic. The ultimate white symbolized the inner purity of clothing, while the vivid burnt orange represents man-made warmth. Through form-fitting and contoured knitting pieces, randomness becomes more dimensional. The function-oriented leather goods aim to awaken people's perception of life. The concept of "timeless" broadens the scale of the closed space and adds uncertainty to the certainty. Chaos has an underlying order, and the return from order to chaos, from form to vortex, represents a state of contentment, close to the fear of grace, where one can pass into eternity in an instant. The brand's answer to the formless form is universality through subjectivity.