The last time Sasha Huang was on the runway was spring 2024. It was Shanghai Fashion Week’s big return, and Huang’s singular style—her lineups consist almost entirely of knitwear—broke the mold in an otherwise high-octane week that emphasized dressiness by focusing entirely on craft. Huang was busy with another project at the time, too. She was pregnant then, and while she did continue to develop collections for what has become one of the best-selling labels on the schedule, she stepped away from the runway until now. This past weekend, almost two years later, a knit blanket featuring an image of her baby’s legs decorated her show space.
Huang’s set was fashioned to look like a home in a small village. Sitting on the perimeter and facing her guests were a couple of women who knitted diligently in the lead-up to the presentation. As the lights began to dim, the women stood and draped whatever item they had been working on on their chairs and headed backstage, as if at the end of a long day. What followed was a tightly edited offering of Huang’s infinitely creative but not restrictive or overly conceptual knitted creations.
“It’s the fall season, so I just like to focus on pieces that feel cozy,” she explained pre-show. That simple and direct statement was very much an understatement. Cozy doesn’t begin to describe the feeling that Huang’s clothes evoked on the runway. The show kicked off with chunky patterned sweaters and vests in saturated autumnal colors. They were worn with roomy cargos or knit skirts and usually over knit button-downs and second-skin tops, the former finished with sheer sequin stripes. The sweaters and vests were paired with chunky socks or sheer knit gloves, belted with softly tied leather straps, and accessorized with trinkets that ranged from tiny knitting scissors to even smaller crystal talismans and mini keys and vases, all of which had crochet knit covers. Huang proposed a vast and impressive range of techniques that veered from flat machine knits to shaggy mohair sweaters to openwork lace, each look more charming or craft-forward than the one before it, yet still modern.
For all the talk in Shanghai about the benefits of creating a commercial collection—trust, there have been many—Huang offered a masterclass in doing so with creative integrity.
