Yin & yang
A masculine edge to Jason Wu’s accessories for Hugo Boss is countered by his softer take on womenswear. By Zara Wong.
The first thing that Jason Wu does when he picks up the phone is apologise profusely for the time it took to organise the interview. This is not standard practice from an interviewee, who would not usually be aware of the machinations of organising interviews. Besides which, journalists are used to the chock-a-block schedules of designers, particularly those who work trans-Atlantic, like Wu, who travels from New York, where he works on his eponymous line, to Metzingen in Germany, where he is artistic director of Hugo Boss. “I have two iPhones that are always calling at the same time, all the time, and an iPhone calendar that gets updated every hour,” he says from his New York studio.
In New York a few weeks after our interview, I am shown tweed dresses with undulating waves and the best slouchy trousers, from the Hugo Boss autumn/winter ’16/’17 collection. Wu had already alluded to a touch of looseness for this season. “I think there’s a sense of movement in the collection,” he hinted earlier.
During his initial days at Boss, the designer looked to the label’s menswear tailoring – the obvious choice. There were the strict Bauhaus lines and graphic shapes, expected and familiar and, well, Germanic. The prior spring/summer ’16 collection, which showed last September, was the first sign that Wu was finally at ease in his surroundings, making a confident yet considered sidestep from his original approach. Light and airy shirt-dresses were intercepted by finely pleated insets – you could imagine wearing one barefoot, with a hat in one hand, sandals in the other. Fringing was added to soften the edges, and colours ranged from persimmon to lemon sorbet. “I want to introduce that part of language into the Hugo Boss range. When I started, it was really more about being inspired by the menswear side of the company, and now that I’ve been doing it for four seasons I feel very ready and much more free to explore a softer side to the Boss womenswear collection,” he explains. “So I really need to keep that continuation.”
It’s been satisfying to observe Wu find his comfort zone at the German house over the past few seasons. Next on his list is overhauling the accessories collection. As with ready-to-wear, menswear suiting is an inspiration starting point: the Boss Bespoke bag looked to the shape of men’s briefcases with a neat top handle and shoulder strap. Look a little closer and you’ll notice the clasp is modelled on cuff links. “That’s the architectural element that you saw in a lot of my earlier work,” notes Wu, who explains his deliberation over designing the handbag is because the style will remain unchanged each season. Designing a handbag that is intended to be a future classic of Boss – no pressure there. Leading up to the fashion show, Wu is constantly refining and editing a collection. “The older I’ve become the more I learn to trust my instincts. I think maybe when I was in my 20s I wasn’t always sure about my own thing,” he says, thinking back. Now, at the age of 33, he’s reached the stage where he’s stopped secondguessing and has learnt to trust himself. “If your gut is not telling you that it’s the right thing to do, then it’s not the right thing to do,” he says. “I think that’s actually what’s brought me here.”
“I HAVE TWO PHONES THAT ARE ALWAYS CALLING AT THE SAME TIME, ALL THE TIME”