Hung La, the Vietnamese-American co-founder of Kwaidan Editions and the designer behind this bad-boy brand—its name means “dangerous man” in Vietnamese—brought his sixth collection to Paris this week, taking over a small gallery in the arty-scruffy upper reaches of the rue Saint Martin.
An engineer by training, La earned his stripes working at Balenciaga in the Ghesquière years and Celine during Phoebe Philo’s tenure. From the former, he learned to dream; from the latter, he learned how to stay grounded. With his own brand, he’s tapping into an underserved sartorial niche: Asian masculinity.
If zeroing in on Asian bad boys and villains rings stereotypical, Dan wants to be heard out. “If you look at the visibility in the West of Asian identity in the media, it’s very polarizing,” he said. “You have emasculated Breakfast at Tiffany’s or you have Die Hard explosives and kung fu—there’s not a lot of range.” His mission is to bring depth, texture, and Asian culture to men’s wear.
Borrowing a mantra from Gandhi, La’s “Do or Die” collection is shown here on a band of real-life “misfits,” in all their tattooed, pierced, rough-hewn authenticity. They include Jiman, a mohawked Malaysian ex-punk turned activist and fashion PR; Hao, a long-haired DJ from Chengdu whom La met during Shanghai fashion week; and James, a reformed bad boy from the Philippines (shown here in pink workwear). “People don’t realize how many cool things are happening in Asia,” La said. “We want to celebrate all those things, and share them in a broader scope.”
The clothes looked modern, sleek, and devoid of nostalgia, which is a strong point in a season defined by exactly that. Extra-extra-large trucker jeans are designed to fold over at the hips and be tacked down; “rocker” jeans zip from belly button to the small of the back; a “fight club” bomber is embroidered with kickboxing patches, and a fringed biker jacket and chaps channel a cowboy vibe. Here and there, the Indonesian slogan “menfolk punah,” crops up, which means “resist extinction.”
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