Written by Kamogelo Kungwane | Imagery courtesy of Launchmetrics
Kim Shui is Seductive Sophistication for Fall/Winter 25
Kim Shui offers her unique style and perspectives in her new collection at new York Fashion Week, with callbacks to the Wild West and the glitz of the night.
Editor’s note: following rising popularity this past year, you’ll be seeing even more overblown fur pieces, sleek cheetah prints, cowboy references in hats or boleros, and skintight lace for 2025. Kim Shui’s collection hits all of the high notes for statement looks to turn heads.
In true Kim Shui fashion, sexiness met sophistication with her Fall 25 Ready to Wear collection. Shui is known for her edgy and exciting designs, where she blends fun and provocative elements and turns them into sultry and refined pieces. Her previous focus on “raunchy”, playgirl pieces took a bit of a backseat with this collection and instead found a companion in her new motivation — elegance. She made a conscious and successful effort to maintain her fun and daring style and marry it with an elegance and class that very clearly screams her name.
As a Chinese designer, born in the United States and raised in Italy, Shui has consistently blended her Eastern roots with Western elements that have created a style that is unique to her and her experiences. A Kim Shui collection is notable from a mile away and that is no different with this collection. This time, Shui took her Western influences from Italian artist, Monica Bonvicini, and blended this influence with her signature party girl aesthetic. Bonvicini’s Marlboro Man Prairie is a notable inspiration, especially in the chosen silhouettes and the details of the accessories. Marlboro Man Prairie is an image that features a cowboy on a horse in a grassy field, and the inspiration from this piece is evident through the bolo ties, thigh-high boots, leather tassels and cowboy belt buckles that were recurring elements of this collection.
A constant throughout this collection is the presence of leather, with some models clad in head-to-toe leather ensembles and others featuring leather alongside satin pieces, fur and more, a perfect blend of feminine elegance and bold power. This collection wanted to send a message of power, class and sensuality, and it achieved this easily. The deep, dark tones of wine red, deep green and black that featured across multiple pieces in the collection ensured that the outfits were bold and powerful. They sent the message that a woman dressed in a Kim Shui garment should not be messed with… a sentiment that Shui seemingly intends to portray, given her inspiration by Bonvicini’s works often referencing power and control.
Shui captured the essence of sensuality in the silhouettes she chose by using bold cuts, seductive details, cutouts, and fabrics like fur and satin to elevate the femininity and sexiness of her pieces. In this collection, Shui did not shy away from embracing both sides of femininity in its seductive classiness, as well as its bold power. She has redefined what it means to be a woman, and this definition exists in a beautiful mixture of class, sultriness and authority that only Shui could capture.
