Fall 2024 Haute Couture: Robert Wun's Exploration of Time
To mark a decade of his eponymous house, Robert Wun turned inward, using his anniversary collection to meditate on the passing of time. In his notes, the designer spoke candidly about questioning purpose—why he has created for so long, why he still feels compelled to continue, and how one measures longevity in a métier built on constant reinvention. The answer, he said, emerged through the work itself: an acceptance that “one day everything ends — and that’s okay.”
On the runway, that quiet epiphany unfolded as a visual journey through the seasons and the cyclical nature of life. A shifting multimedia backdrop set the rhythm, moving from crystalline winter to the soft optimism of spring, then toward the bruised hues of decay. Wun framed it as a search for meaning—an invitation to feel time’s imprint on a world defined by impermanence. His aim, he said, was to let craftsmanship become the vessel through which time reveals itself, offering the audience a moment to be suspended, almost cinematically, outside the everyday.
The opening look established the tone: a sweeping black gown paired with a matching veil, its surfaces densely embroidered with crystals that caught the light like frost. Seasons unfurled in a sequence of motifs—pink cherry blossoms delicately scattered across satin, autumn leaves rendered in burnished tones, oversized florals swelling into sculptural relief. Feather butterflies fluttered from look to look, a recurring whisper of transformation.
As the narrative darkened, Wun revisited his earlier experiments with scorched and distressed textiles, here deployed as a metaphor for decline. The final quartet distilled the body into elemental stages: the skin, the flesh—interpreted as a blood-red column sheathed in bugle beads suggesting muscle fibre—the bones, and finally the soul, shimmering in a constellation of multicoloured crystals that evoked the expanse of a night sky.
The result was less a retrospective than a contemplation—a designer using the vocabulary he has honed over ten years to probe the fragility, beauty, and inevitability that give couture its emotional charge.
