Fresh Inspiration from LANYU

Food for the soul: a stunning creation by LANYU

I wonder sometimes if we praise every Chanel collection that comes down the runway because it's art or because it's Chanel. Ask yourself: do you actually think that Gucci belt is awesome or did you buy it because it's a thing right now? How about your Valentino Rock stud shoes? I know you didn't spend $600 on a Balmain tee because it flatters your figure.

Last spring, around the time when I couldn't find an Instagram photo without a Birkin, boy or bamboo bag, I found myself becoming disenchanted with the hamster wheel of fashion. Starved for inspiration, I wondered if this was all it was ⏤ buying whatever was trendy at the moment and attaching my self worth to the number of Kardashian/Jenner/Hadid approved items I collected. Fashion wasn't fun anymore. It was exhausting. And expensive. And the truth is, I don't even like belts, Gucci or otherwise, on account of the fact that I'm almost never wearing anything with belt loops.

And then one day in May, flipping nonchalantly through red carpet looks from the Cannes Film Festival, I saw this dress.

Kim Kardashian in a LANYU Swarovski crystal dress in Cannes, May 2016

Regardless of your opinion of Kim Kardashian, credit must be given where credit is due. The reality star and business woman is almost solely responsible for introducing the world to Balmain, contoured makeup and underwear-as-outerwear. And at last year’s annual De Grisogono party, she introduced me to LANYU.

Chinese designer Lan Yu was already a household name in Asia when I first came across her intricate designs, but my discovery of the label was a major moment for me nonetheless, like the first time a high school student opens Catcher in the Rye, or like one of the most memorable days of my childhood when, during a trip to the Guggenheim with my parents, I first saw the paintings of Wassily Kandinski, half a century after his death. LANYU wasn’t new, but it was new to me. And while I didn't know anything about it, I knew it was art.

 

From that first crystal-covered dress to this morning's Instagram post, every time I look at a LANYU design, I feel something. That is, after all, how human beings are meant to recognize art. Not because it's trendy or expensive or in the window at Bergdorf. Art makes us feel.

LANYU FW 17 Ready to Wear, presented at NYFW in February (P.S. LANYU has a New York office now!)

Discovering something beautiful for the first time creates the renewal of inspiration and energy that one gets from a traveling to a new place. In fact, it is one of the best parts of travel. For me, LANYU, like so much art, is as transporting as a vacation.

A few of my favorites from past LANYU couture collections

While the age of the Internet may be to blame for making pop culture more important than being cultured, it also allows for us to discover and be inspired by designers outside of our own culture, and far beyond Paris and Milan. In addition to Shandong-born Lan Yu, consider Elio Abou Fayssal in Lebanon, Yulia Yanina in Russia or India's Manish Malhotra.

Designers don't produce multiple, ever-evolving collections each year to torture consumers by making constantly buy new things in an effort to stay eternally "in" ⏤ we're doing that to ourselves. The changes in trends are a result of fresh inspiration. Yet, by the time the moving masterpieces on the runway trickle into stores, we consumers are often so obsessed with being in, we forget that the point was to be inspired.

Enough of that. In case you don't read the news, we are living in the age of the individual in which being in is out. From your wardrobe to your home decor to the company you keep, surround yourself with what makes you feel: feel like yourself, feel beautiful, feel inspired.

See more from LANYU at lanyu.fr