At 40 years old, Alexander Wang and his 19-year-old namesake brand are maturing. But that’s not to say that he’s lost his edge, as proven by Wednesday night’s fashion show featuring select looks from his pre-fall 2024, fall 2024 and resort 2025 collections.
Six years after a rebrand that had Alexander Wang abandoning many of its brand signatures, this week’s show — unofficially dubbed “Legacy 2.0” — revisited and modernized them. The 38 featured looks were heavy in studs, leather and denim, T-shirt dressing was back on the menu, and a black-and-white color palette dominated. The Rocco bag, originally launched in 2009, was reintroduced as the Ricco and showcased in a variety of new silhouettes.
“About five years ago, we went really drastic. We changed the logo, we changed the store concept, we threw a lot out — and it was almost like throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Wang told Glossy. “It took some growing up for me to realize: ‘This is our legacy and what people recognize us for. We should be proud to own it and not shy away from it.’ So now, we’re reclaiming the things we stood for and standing strong by them.”
What is new about the brand, which last hosted a fashion show in February 2023, is that Wang himself has become less visible — or, at least, that’s his intention. The change follows a series of sexual assault allegations made against Wang in 2020 that tarnished his brand. It was years until celebrities began working it back into their wardrobes.
“I’m now thinking about the brand as an ‘it,’ versus a ‘me,’” Wang said. “Every day, the [fashion] news is about the designers coming in and out of fashion houses, and the change of creative direction. And so, taking myself out of it, the focus is now on: ‘If I was a new designer coming into this brand, what codes would I have to work with?’ It’s a fresh perspective, rather than, ‘I’ve been doing this for 20 years. How am I going to keep pushing myself?’”
But, Wang assured, he’s not going anywhere. “My focus is here at Alexander Wang,” he said, while noting that he’s in a relationship for the first time for which he’s carving out space.
Reflecting on his 2012-2015 stint as creative director at Balenciaga, he said, “I’ve done the other house and the European scene, and it was fun, it was fantastic, and I learned so much. … But when I’m at another house, I feel like I’m just an employee and put in the corner. … I love trying new things in different shows, and I wouldn’t have that freedom or flexibility if I was somewhere else.”
This week’s show, at the brand’s flagship store in NYC’s SoHo, showcased much celeb support for Alexander Wang, with Kim Cattrall and Ice Spice, the face of the brand’s spring campaign, among attendees. Dennis Rodman, Gabriette Bechtel and the show’s makeup lead, Isamaya Ffrench, walked the runway.
But the show was just one element of this week’s marketing moment orchestrated by Wang and his team. “There’s a live component, and there’s a pre-filmed digital video component with a CGI component. … We wanted to do something intimate in New York for the live [portion], but also have something that could travel far and live longer than live social on the web.”
On Thursday, the brand debuted on its social channels the first clip from a seven-minute film directed by Maxime Quoilin that incorporates video captured at the fashion show. Cattrall, Rodman, Tommy Cash and Paris Jackson act in the piece, which reads as a dramatized, tech-infused chronicle of their experiences Wednesday night. To cast the video, Wang targeted “trailblazers” and “rulebreakers” who would be fun to see performing, he said.
Alexander Wang’s marketing has fueled buzz as of late. Last month, its digital campaign for the Ricco bag came under fire for featuring celebrity lookalikes at a time when the relatively easy use of one’s likeness has forced widespread concerns.
“People’s attention spans are so short. … So you have to catch someone’s attention, and they have to be able to decide at that moment: Are they interested? Do they love it, or do they not?” Wang said, regarding the brand’s marketing approach. “I’d rather them hate it than not have an opinion about it. … We just try to make sure that nothing is going too far but that we’re giving people something to think about.”
As for the state of Wang’s business, it’s the strongest it’s been, he said. In 2022, the brand took on a minority investment from the China-based VC fund Challenjers Capital and institutional investor Youngor Group which has funded moves including accelerated expansion in Asia, largely focused in China. In the region, the brand has been opening “about a store a month for the last few years,” Wang said.
But Alexander Wang has global brand ambitions. In North America, the brand has opened stores in Toronto, Las Vegas and Miami since November, with another set to open in early 2025. The company takes a localized approach to stores, with some — like its London flagship in Mayfair — catering to exclusive VIP services, while others thrive on foot traffic.
“When I started the company, we had organic success. Everything was instinctual and attached to me — it was just my family [who helped run the company], my friends and my community,” Wang said. “But bringing in outside investors and expertise has challenged how we do and think about things, and made me think about what the brand will look like as it grows up. … Rather than ‘How are we going to make ends meet?’ it’s ‘How are we building for the future?’ Revenue is vanity and EBITDA is sanity, so we’re making sure we have a solid infrastructure to build on.”
Paula Sutter, Wang’s mentor while going through the CFDA Fashion Fund, has been the company’s acting CEO for the last five years, and several important team hires will be announced in the coming months, Wang said. At the same time, he was sure to note that the brand’s investors are minority investors. “They’re not from the world of fashion, so they trust me to take the lead,” he said.
Though the brand hosts one show per year — ”when there is something we want to say,” Wang said — it maintains seasonal collections that it sells on the traditional market calendar. In the last three years, Alexander Wang has become a “predominantly DTC” business, but, Wang said, he still values the storytelling and collaboration of partners like Saks, Nordstrom, The Webster and LN-CC.
While also retaining customers who have been loyal to the brand through it all, Wang said that allowing “new fans to participate, in a very democratic way,” is a priority. To that end, in November, the brand launched a bodywear category inclusive of styles like $30 bras and $25 underwear.
As his brand approaches its 20th anniversary, Wang said he feels “blessed and grateful” to still be doing what he loves. In the future, he said, he sees himself eventually branching out to do projects in the home and hospitality categories.
For young designers entering the industry, he advised savoring each experience, remaining nimble and staying true to their perspective.
“The greatest brands, like Ralph [Lauren], are rock solid in what they stand for because they’ve had decades of legacy practiced and mistakes learned,” he said. “You iterate and you move on, and you build something stronger.”
