Motion sickness pills were discreetly stashed in guests’ handbags for Kim Shui’s 10-year anniversary. This season, New York fashion week set sail, literally. The designer decided to trade the usual venues for a boat on the Hudson, the Eternity Yacht at Pier 17, to be exact. What’s more New York than fashion wobbling past skyscrapers on a river?
Per the collection notes, “Set against New York City’s surrounding waterways, the show repositions the city as a modern terrain of migration and transformation. Presented aboard a moving vessel, the runway becomes a living metaphor, the boat acting as a contemporary counterpart to the horse, an instrument of mobility, while the skyline shifts with the evolving landscape.”
Shui looked to Mongolia’s nomadic past, where movement wasn’t a choice but a way of life, from vast landscapes to the era of Genghis Khan. So, after a brief struggle with gravity and balance, the runway came to life, and it had it all. Greens, reds, and sunburnt tones were all part of it. Just like animal print, faux fur, thick velvet, suede, and leather. But what actually stood out were the knots. Not as decoration, but as the thing holding everything together. Shui pushed traditional Chinese knotting into structural territory, cords under tension and handwork doing the job fabric usually does. In several looks, the clothes relied almost entirely on this system. Oversized pankou closures kept showing up, working at once as fastenings, details, and the logic behind the whole garment.
The first knotted looks took me straight to China. Somewhere in the middle, I drifted into 80s Italy. Then suddenly, it all felt aggressively New York, before circling back again. Not a single look invited quiet thoughts or passive viewing. From oversized hair bows to complex construction, it all read very Kim Shui, even when it wobbled.
