The Tamesis
A drowsy introduction to The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” plays on a loop in the rain garden of the Belgian consulate in Shanghai. Many guests huddled under umbrellas, while a privileged few, including Consul General Pascal Buffin and the Vogue Runway laptop eavesdroppers, stayed in a number of biodome-like shelters built around a raised makeshift runway. These hint at Qiu’s conceptual metaphor for the series: “It’s a bubble. Memories of certain times, past and present.”
In addition to silks from her hometown in Hangzhou, Qiu creates her collections with fabrics from Italy, India, Africa and elsewhere. These looks are often very classic, but then surprisingly distorted through detail and contrast. Tailored suits transcend the norm with wide collars, paneled hems and shaped buttons. A long dark coat, in the style of a royal official, with dark tassels on the collar and hem, embellished with sparse but brightly colored threads. Organza dresses were embroidered or affixed with floral shapes and botanical strokes in metallic tones, flowing off the body and sometimes cut into messy spirals.
The opening bursts out into a tightly textured dark terry cloth that requires a closer look to reveal its subtle pile pattern. Sequins were scattered haphazardly like a kaleidoscope on a kaleidoscope sheath dress, or arrayed in small and silver, large and gold on a longer, dramatic graduation gown, paired with a tough cropped jacket in crackled brown leather with faux fur. The toes of the boots sometimes had lace, and the heads were sometimes clad in strange clinical helmets made of twisted metal straps. Tenderly surreal and charmingly whimsical, the series ended when a machine in the center of the track sprayed out a stream of bubbles that were quickly pushed onto the lawn before inexorably bursting under the gentle pressure of the afternoon rain.
