LVMH PRIZE-- XIMON LEE

The Past, present and future

Ximon Lee, a 24-years-old Chinese designer based in New York, became the first menswear designer to winthe H&M design award. Eight months ago, he graduated from Parsons School of Design, but now his nascent namesake label has already received a lot of attention through winning this competition. With only a four-year history, the H&M design award has been a strong force, which cannot be ignored in the fashion circle since the H&M has a huge influence on the worldwide retail network. In addition to showing the collection in the Stockholm fashion week, H&M offers the winner €50,000 and the opportunity to develop pieces from his collection to be sold at select H&M stores and at hm.com each fall.

Ximon’s winning collection, inspired by the Polish documentary “Children of Leningradsky” about children living in the Post-Soviet states, featured exaggerated architectural silhouettes and layered arrangements of fabrics such as heavy denim, felt, neoprene, even plastic and cardboard. This collection helped him enter to the finalists of the LVHM Young Fashion Designer Prize, at the same time, it was chosen by VFiles as the part of their Fall 2015 RTW collection presented in New York Fashion Week, which just ended in February.

Cecilia: Your collection infuses a lot of elements that make me curious about your experience of growing up. Ximon: I had to move a lot in my childhood. I was born in Heilongjiang, a city in the far north of China near Russia, and lived there until I was eight moving to Beijing with my family. Then I moved to Shanghai and before I came to New York, I lived in Hong Kong. Cecilia: Had you planned to be a fashion designer when you enrolled in the Parsons? Xenon: My major was visual arts and I had a strong passion for it, when I started at Parsons. I have worked in an art gallery and interpreted a lot of exhibitions in Hong Kong. I didn’t realize my interest in fashion until I took the sewing course with my friend coincidentally when I was a second-year student. Fashion design is a process that goes from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional object. I was suddenly obsessed. After a period of considering, I changed my major. Cecilia: Your graduation collection, which is also your winning collection, is inspired by the documentary “Children of Leningradsky”. Does it have some relevance with your childhood? Ximon: That documentary is about Post-Soviet states. There are a lot of street scenes of Moscow, gray and quadrate buildings that remind me of where I was born and lived in my childhood. The winter there is quite cold, minus 30-40 degrees. Kids need to layer themselves, not for fashion, but for survival. Suddenly I had an urge to go back and see. So I took a few weeks traveling to Moscow, taking photos of buildings and researching the way kids dress. They didn’t intend to dress like that, a lot of layers and patchworks, even using crushed coke bottles as decorations. I absorbed these elements into my collection even though they are a little bit awkward.

Cecilia: That sounds hard to operate. Do you have a base type of garment? Ximon: Yes, I got some pieces from the Salvation Army as my reference to make patterns. I tried to imitate the way of children wearing to layer and drape on the mannequins. The final result is what you have already seen, a boxy silhouette, layer by layer and some collage.

Cecilia: Why did you choose these fabrics, especially plastic and cardboard?

Ximon: The reason I used denim and felt is these two kinds of fabrics themselves are already layered, which matched my concept. However, I did some transformation that bleach and dye them to create a gradient effect. And the trash bags and cardboard are also the way of kids’ dress that appeared in the documentary. These fabrics belong to organic fabric, which I thought would be a trend of street fashion in the future.

Cecilia: What do you really gain from the competition and showing in the New York Fashion week? In addition to money, which is important for a young designer to avoid financial problems, I obtain a lot of attention from the press and audience. It feels so good to get respect from both H&M and VFiles, at the same time, support and advice from these mature teams. I was worried about marketing management of my collection, because it seemed to lack wearable for H&M’s customers. But they told me that “Don’t worry about that just focus on design. This is theprize we offer you. We want to help you sell what you want to sell. ” I was so touched. No matter working with H&M or VFiles, I have rights to decide everything, even the position of a button. For me, it is another education process and gives me more than my expectations. Cecilia: What’s your next step? Ximon: I need to keep working with H&M on the final products. We might meet some problems during the production like the time and temperature of bleaching denim. This collection will be launched in H&M selected stores and online in this fall. Also, the last few weeks have been overwhelming because I did everything on my own. I do need a partner or a team to assist me with building up my label, but it’s not easy to find a right one. I worked for Calvin Klein and 3.1 Phillip Lim during the school in my internships, and knew that a systematic team is very helpful for a designer. What’s more, I want to bridge with the Chinese market, which is an emerging important market for any fashion designers.