“It’s not their everyday identity. But if you put on Lu’u Dan, you become a badass.”
Hung La, who carries his brand as convincingly as any designer, was referring to two standout appearances in his lineup. The first is Errolson Hugh, co-founder of the label Acronym, who you see in the opening look wearing a latex hoodie, rubber apron and quilted denim – a perfect ensemble for an evening that may or may not end well (you’ll find him again wearing a real butcher’s apron over super-large baggy jeans that are now Lu’u Dan’s signature).
Then there’s photographer Peter Ash Lee, who can be seen from Look 5, dressed in a similarly ominous fashion, and further on in brightly colored faux fur drawstring trousers: half man, half bear. In the Paris showroom, models appeared in a selection from the lookbook, transformed from young boys into guerrilla fighters and underworld types whose exaggerated but precisely executed silhouettes would intimidate almost anyone.
La noted how this season’s “sinister” style manifested from its composite concerns about politics, climate change and wars, while also harkening back to the early days of Covid, when anti-Asian racism spread through New York and beyond. That’s why ‘You Do Not Belong Here’ is the collective title, a latent trauma that now resurfaces as anger. “What I’m trying to say is, ‘he’s rebelling, he’s angry about the darkness, he’s fighting,’” La explained.
An outlaw approach has driven Lu’u Dan since its debut in 2022, with La consistently utilizing tougher, character-based representations of Asian masculinity. Silhouettes echoed this message, with imposing streetwear books interpreted by ancient warriors and, in La’s words, ‘scary car mechanics’. Meanwhile, surfaces treated with a distressed effect echoed the brand’s experimental, process-oriented strengths: crumpled calfskin and nylon, faded denim, a woven jersey that doubles as soft armor, and “X-ray” contrast screen printing that decorates the inside of a captured garment. while he resembles a trompe l’œil.
If a tight jumpsuit or padded cargo pieces look menacing, the intention is not to glorify deviance, La pointed out, but to undermine power dynamics. Belonging to the title can also be read in different ways. Yesterday, La walked into Willy Chavarria’s show and marveled at “all the beautiful people of color – this is the beauty of fashion today.” Back in the showroom, where La Cincinnati welcomed Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase and rapper Key Glock, he acknowledged that the Lu’u Dan badass might be putting the doom and gloom behind him. “My collections won’t always be this dark, I promise you.”