PROSPECTS: LAMRONS

LAMRONS MAKES COMPLEXITY SEEM SIMPLE, STANDING OUT AGAINST ITS UP-AND-COMING PEERS

By Eric Brain

Clothes say a lot about a person. You adhere to the status quo, or eschew it in favor of individuality—even then, you are likely to find yourself amongst the like-minded. And today, it’s particularly hard to stand out when the de facto trend is to not subscribe to a singular aesthetic or attitude; rather, we’re encouraged to keep it simple and authentic. This challenge is one LAMRONS faces head-on, whose designs are intentionally simple and knowingly complicated simultaneously.

LAMRONS—which the brand notes is “NORMAL” spelled backwards, signifying the personalities or characteristics of a nonconformist—is ironically self-aware that its clothes are about conforming to traditions, like tailoring informed by formalwear of the 1970s and ’80s and outerwear positioned for hiking mountains and city streets alike. From there, it deconstructs these traditions in a way not done before; not “deconstructs” in a typical fashion sensibility, but in undoing associations and tropes and re-contextualizing them. Pajama-esque shirting for formalwear, or functional outerwear decked in luxurious, lightweight materials, are rife from one collection to another.

In this installment of Prospects, Beyond Noise speaks to LAMRONS co-founder Holly Wang, and fellow co-founder and designer Zin Zhang, about their creative process, while on the image front, EU Fashion Editor Alexandra Bickerdike highlights our favorite pieces.

ERIC BRAIN: LAMRONS is “NORMAL/S” spelled backwards. Is this intention also found within your work?

LAMRONS: I think the things you spend on or wear are just special for yourself. If you are wearing a simple shirt or t-shirt with simple trousers, the garments themselves are simple. But the way you are wearing them can be complicated, can be different.

EB: LAMRONS makes simplistic clothes in a complicated way. Can you explain this in more depth?

L: Sometimes we do a very different silhouette. Sometimes we use deconstructed or open-back elements. We normally put our design elements as a small part of the garment—a mini pocket or something like this. If you look at it closely, you will see the design details. That’s the technical approach that’s always used in our collections.

EB: Traditions inspire a lot of your clothes, but they’re made more contemporary. How do you draw inspiration from traditions and how do you continue to modernize?

L: I’m really interested in vintage garments, and you can find that they treat the details in different ways. When I am making a new design and I don’t know how to solve a detail, I can look to [techniques exhibited in] vintage garments.

EB: What makes LAMRONS stand out?

L: We are not that aggressive. We are just here in the Chinese market. We’re not facing the European market yet—so super new. We just want to create season by season, and let the time go by.

EB: What similarities and differences can we find from one collection to the next?

L: We use the same mood for every season. Each season, we are inspired by travel. As we grow older, LAMRONS is getting calm and getting loose. When I go to a different place, I can feel the different culture, different sounds, different colors.

EB: How do you balance minimalism with visual intrigue?

L: At LAMRONS, we don’t do very shiny designs. The garments themselves are quite simple. But to enter the stage as a designer, as a label, we have to put in a lot of time to make good-quality garments. We have to make sure that we find suitable fabric and a suitable cut, putting every detail together to make just a single shirt. We combine things that are romantic with things that are pragmatic. Romanticism is about emotion, but pragmatism is about protecting yourself and being rational.

Beauty really depends [person to person]. Depends on who you are, what you have experienced, and who you are at the moment. It’s like, when girls are younger, they like pink. But when they become teenagers, they like black. After several years, they might go back to the simple thing. That’s a circle. Next year, you might learn something else. We believe everything can be beautiful someday.

EB: What does the future hold for LAMRONS?

L: Honestly, I don’t know. But we are keeping fresh, staying adventurous. As the time goes by, LAMRONS will tell the story.