When Viviano Sue was planning how best to showcase his collection this season, the designer’s team asked him to choose between reality or fantasy. “It’s like, of course, fantasy!” said Sue during a showroom walkthrough.
That tells you all you need to know about Viviano, which has shot into the limelight lately thanks to a raft of top-tier celebs performing or hitting the red carpet in the designer’s photogenic clothes. Lady Gaga, Hudson Williams and Erykah Badu have worn the brand, and he’s had Madonna knocking at the door too.
Forgoing a runway show for the first time over three years as he plans to expand the business, the designer opted for a lookbook that was “supposed to be like a room, but inside a dream.” Models dressed in humongous leopard print getups, vampish nylon trench coats, ruffled skirts and jade moiré corsets stood in heeled pumps on a carpet of blue sand. “Everybody loves corsets in Hollywood right now,” he said.
Sue knows that commercial pieces are necessary to fund the all-out fantasy, and was careful to flesh out the collection with printed T-shirts and track tops, cropped tailoring, and puff-sleeved polo shirts. Even so, he made sure that even the wildest pieces in the collection were still realistic. “We are making clothes, we’re not making art,” he said. “Fashion is supposed to be something people can wear, no matter how crazy it is.”
The experience dressing more celebs gave Sue a new appreciation for designing for the body. “It’s not about, ‘okay, I have to get more skinny to wear this dress.’ We have other dresses for you!” he said. “The people don’t have to fit the clothes, the clothes have to fit the people. And I think from our collection, you can pick things you want and you can become yourself.”
The pannier skirts were the heart of it. Structured with identical boning, the shapes of each one changed depending on the material: the huge pearly sequined version was heavy and made for the stage, while the lace and nylon numbers were light enough to dance in. Playing around with them in the showroom was great fun. “It looks like a gyoza!” trilled Sue. The mix of dress-up box fantasy, retail knowhow and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of humor, sets Viviano in good stead. Who will wear it next?
