Andrew Gn’s Fall Collection Celebrates New Singapore Retrospective – WWD

Andrew Gn is gearing up for a bumper year.

In May, the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore will host a retrospective of his 28-year career, which will subsequently travel to the United States and France. The same month, Gn will launch a capsule wedding collection with Net-a-porter, and he’s also developing his first menswear collection, due to bow at the end of the year.

His fall womenswear collection, titled “Roots,” celebrates the upcoming exhibition with a spin through his archives. “It’s Singapore and Paris, the two longest periods of my life, so not just my Asian roots, but also my roots here in Europe,” he explained.

Gn has revisited some prints – including a landscape motif inspired by a coromandel lacquer screen, and a William Morris-inspired leaf pattern – in a rich autumnal palette burnished with metallic effects. The botanical pattern was rendered in copper and bronze on a short-sleeved evening gown embellished with his signature cabochon crystal neckline.   

He repurposed an Art Deco-patterned lace as a trim on a thigh-grazing white dress, and popped what he called a “Lady Gaga collar” in white lace, borrowed from a dress the singer wore two years ago, on an emerald brocade dress with jeweled buttons. It all dovetails with his philosophy of creating clothes that stand the test of time.

“I want women to be able to wear it over and over again,” he said. “Rather than buying five or six dresses, you only buy one.”

With their sharp shoulders, vivid colors and lavish embellishments, the clothes had a graphic quality that made them pop off the screen – a key consideration for the designer, who has moved a large proportion of his sales online in recent years.

“It’s all about the combination of visual appeal and also how finely it has been crafted in real life,” he said. “I want a woman to say, ‘Oh my god, it looks good on the screen, but then when I receive it, it’s even better.’”

Gn, who is also working on a biography, has donated 160 outfits to the Asian Civilizations Museum, with the hope of starting an archive available to students, similar to the Fashion Institute of Technology fund he consulted on during his stint at Parsons School of Design in New York City. “It’s to educate a new generation,” he said.