Vivienne Tam presented her Spring/Summer 2023 collection on September 14 at the Gallery at Spring Studios.
This season, Vivienne Tam bridged the virtual world with the material realm. It was truly the embodiment of the metaverse and tapping into the past, present, and future. For her 2023 Spring/Summer collection, Tam pulled numerous avatars from the most iconic blue chip NFT collections and incorporated them into her upcoming looks.
Ubiquitous characters from the Yuga Labs umbrella (Bored Ape Yacht Club & CryptoPunks), classics like CyberKongz, and Awkward Astronauts (and more) were sewn, embroidered, printed, and emblazoned onto and into various cuts and silhouettes, including numerous accessories, merging Tam’s rich culture and expertise with a brave new digital world.
“The metaverse also needs a physical component and the older generations need the younger ones to help show us new things and new opportunities,” Tam told Jing Daily. “We can share both ways. The past, present, and future can learn from each other. I see the Vivienne Tam brand as being the bridge between the two worlds: old world, new world; physical world, virtual world.”
Who is Vivienne Tam?
If you’re not familiar with Vivienne Tam, allow me to educate you a bit. Tam is a fashion designer based in New York City, although she was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. When she was young, she moved to Hong Kong and later attended the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. For years, she’s infused her Chinese culture, design, heritage and world with her east-west worlds.
I later learned that this show, in particular, was special to Tam as this is her first time back in New York from Hong Kong since the pandemic. However, she’s been in the industry and doing the work for a very long time. She held her first NYFW show in Bryant Park back in 1994!
“When you look at this collection, you can see how I play around with the images. I can do embroidery. I can do lace. It’s not like some other NFTs where the images are just on a T-shirt,” Tam told WWD.
“Now I’m going from the past to the present to the future,” she said. “In the past, we would go to flea markets and research antique clothing to understand the past, cultures, fashion history, and history in order to make it new. But now I’m thinking about, ‘What is the future?’”
The collection featured bold and bright silhouettes, almost a whimsical nature of sorts. It had so many intricate designs that cascaded down the runway in bold colors like yellows, oranges, reds and more. Even simpler colors like whites and grays were complimented with interesting cuts and bold design choices. Overall, the show just shows that Vivienne Tam is back and here to stay.
