Sandy Liang: Healing Our Inner Child Through Fashion

Sandy Liang is a new-wave fashion designer who has already become an iconic name. With her distinctly recognisable motifs and a sense of chic girly style, Liang has captivated a loyal audience and is contributing to the growing movement of reconnection to the ‘inner child’. A movement characterised by healing, evolution and celebration of the child one once was.

Liang’s 2024 spring runway show at NYFW was a tour de force of bows, pleats, flowers and sheer mesh - all quintessentially iconic Liang elements. The collection is cohesive, full of whimsy and hyper-feminine. Her ballet core influence remains steadfast, visible in the soft pinks and whites dominating the colour palette. But we see Liang blend this with some grungier elements - most noticeably black mesh adorned with bows and many cutouts tied together in a bow.

Liang has created a sense of female community with the eponymous brand. She was inspired by the clothes worn by the grandmothers she saw as a child in Chinatown and she held her first runway show in her family’s restaurant. Highlighting how in the inception of the brand the family core was vital. Further, when explaining the mood board for her most recent show she points out a picture from Sofia Coppola’s debut The Virgin Suicides where a character wears her mother's dress and some sandals. She explains how the dress being ill-fitting makes it more beautiful. Family heirlooms become crucial for the collection, which notably starts with Ethel Cain’s “Family Tree Intro” playing. Again we have the motif of family as the central theme in her work. The notion of a garment or a style being handed down from generation to generation is a strong influence. Personally, there's nothing that makes me feel more grounded or close to my mum than when I wear the jumpers she handed down to me. There's an intimate joy in this action, one that Liang encompasses perfectly through her talent for the preservation of familial legacy through fashion.

The brand’s influence is jumping off the runway, as fashion of course always does, and is spreading to the DIY culture of TikTok. With people explaining what to search on Vinted to find items that reflect the Liang look. Or make their bows to attach to bags and hair clips. Liang has cultivated a new brand of girl culture where people feel free to be playful with their clothes.

Fundamentally Liang presents fashion that isn't taking itself seriously. In Liang's clothes, we can find a sense of girlhood escapism. She actively celebrates markings of femininity that women are often taught to disregard as they transition from girlhood into womanhood. Liang makes clothes for women who love femininity. It's quaint, stylish and clean whilst also being girly, childish and quintessentially fun. By her ability to merge all of these elements, Liang allows us to find solace in a feeling of nostalgic bliss that Liang is pioneering. Consequently providing fashion as an outlet to celebrate and heal our ‘inner child’.