You'd think that the incredibly busy Alexander Wang would have slowed down after departing from Balenciaga to focus on his namesake label. However, the 31-year-old designer has been giving interviews, opening new stores, and releasing anniversary collections to fill his free time. Now, Wang has sat down with Paper to talk about partying with our future President Kanye West, not always rocking his signature all-black-everything look, and building his eponymous label.
Wang is known for his outrageous post-show parties and says that even as he gets older, there's still certain invites he can't turn down. "I am 31 now. I'm still in love with what the city has to offer," Wang tells Paper. "Sometimes, if there's a weird rave in Brooklyn that Kanye is bringing me to, I want to go have an experience. Our first big after-party was in this really sweaty warehouse that had no electricity in midtown in the dead of summer. We had all these people that were coming in dresses and makeup and everything was melting, and we were just dancing and having a good time. This is what a fashion party should be like."
The designer's namesake label is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and Wang has something big in the works to commemorate the occasion. "Part two is a partnership with the charity DoSomething, which supports youth volunteering and social change," Wang says. "We teamed up with Steven Klein and Pascal Dangin to work on a portrait series of about 40 celebrities wearing co-branded hoodies or T-shirts styled in their own personal ways. Proceeds from the sale of the hoodies and T-shirts will support DoSomething. And part three will be a big party after my show in September!"
And while Wang is known for constantly wearing and designing all black outfits, he reveals that hasn't always been the case. "I went through many different phases as a kid," Wang says. "I was a raver. I was hip-hop... And I went to boarding school for a while, where my look was a weird hybrid of preppy meets grunge: layered polo shirts with lots of ripped jeans."
You can read the rest of Wang's interview with Paper here.
