Today we revisit the column of “artists you have to know about. And in this article we bring you the designer: Robert Wun. The Hongkonger artist has been praised in recent years for his daring designs and collections, “if you do something with the only intention of breaking the rules, you often lack authenticity” he states. So he came to the fashion world to explain how to dutifully do so.
Born in Hong-Kong in 1992 Wun took an interest in fashion from an early age, as a pre-teen took a course in fashion design and later moved to London where he studied at London College of Fashion and graduated in 2012. Later in 2014 he founded his brand focusing on women’s fashion and the rewards for his work didn’t take time to arrive. In 2022 he was given the ANDAM prize presided over by Bruno Pavlovsky, the fashion president of Chanel and in 2023 he had his first runaway in the High Couture Fashion Week of Paris. He was the first honkogner to be invited by La Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.
Wun became, since his early starts as a freelancer to later runway élite, one of the most admired new designers of the last decade. His designs are avant-garde, he doesn’t search for perfection, he finds the authentic in the flaws he burns his pieces, he works with liquids on them, he searches for the unusual looks like a dress drenched in blood. Provocation has been his mantra and his success. He reinvented what luxury looks like.
One of his acclaimed pieces is called “The yellow rose” from his Autumn/Winter 2024 collection, a 4 part yellow garment that is notably burnt in different parts. “Since I was a kid I always liked to burn stuff” Wun tells CNN style. The designer explains he used candle light, torches, incense tips and other tools to create different designs. Particularly this one plays with the unspoken rule of the unpolluted designs that generally take different artists to the main events of the world. “When it’s a whole story all together it looks like a painting, that is what i love about it” Wun declares.
Turning the idea of Bleaching hair and transforming it into a runway design is something few can do. After a night out Wun took a towel and dyed it, then he delivered the idea to the embroidery artist who replicated the entire tonalities of the actual bleach into an intricate design masterpiece. Alongside those ideas lies his famous piece “The bleeding love” a wedding gown taken out of a crime film where different parts of the gown are embroidered with blood traces. Using an expensive piece of silk chiffon fabric and splashing it with dye was a bold move that left some of his co-workers in fear but after that bold move that turned into the impressive design we see here today.
Wun takes part of the small group of futurist designers that constantly defy the molds and structures of today’s fashion industry. For him Haute Couture is art and his pieces are his way to translate his ideas onto a world that is thirsty to see more.
