Mark Gong dressed a girl in sweet sequin lace, sent her clubbing to get noticed, then scored her heartbreak. The SS27 show at Shanghai Fashion Week plays like a breakup playlist.
Picture a girl getting ready for a night out. She picks the sweetest thing in her wardrobe, adds sequins, and heads to the club with one goal: making a specific someone look over. That image started MARKGONG SS27, and by the end of the collection, she has been through a lot more than one night.
The collection is called ‘Til We’re Us. It showed at Shanghai Fashion Week as the second chapter of the brand’s Urban Love story. Designer Mark Gong has been explaining to DSCENE where it came from, and the short version is a feeling most of us have had around a playlist.
The sequin lace look that started it all
Gong says the first piece he designed was the sequin lace opening look. He wanted it to feel sexy and to carry some nightlife energy, built around that dressed-up-and-hopeful girl. He adds a small confession: he never publicly called it a “club look”, but it was one of the earliest starting points all the same.
Then the music took over. Gong kept playing Olivia Rodrigo’s new album on a loop and paid close attention to the lyrics and to how each song made him feel at that moment. He mixed those feelings with what was happening in his own life and kept imagining from there. If you have ever cried in a car to a pop record and then somehow come out with a plan, this is that process, only with tulle.
The result, in his words: “In my head, the collection was always very colorful and sweet, but with this feeling of heartbreak underneath it.”
Mint, pink, purple, and a lot of texture
The colors say sweet first. The palette runs through mint green, pink and purple pastels. Lace and sequins are joined by feathers and sheer tulle, which gives the clothes a romantic, slightly playful look. The runway ran along a pink corridor, and the soundtrack tracked the Gong Girl’s changing moods.
It all sounds like candy. The story under it is less sugary. The season follows the Gong Girl through infatuation, anticipation and heartbreak, and it covers the muddled stretch in between, when attraction makes you act a little irrationally. Gong says the idea came from something he was living through: when you really fall for someone, your emotions and your judgment aren’t always rational. Asked how much of the story is drawn from his own experience of love and obsession, he answered, “One hundred percent.”
He also points out that the show isn’t built around a single hero outfit. Asked which look reveals the most about him, he said many of them show different sides of him, reflecting how his feelings shifted at different points. You have to see the whole collection together, he says. “The music, the styling, the colors, even the way the models walk all have a reason behind them. Everything changes along with the emotion.”
Who is the Gong Girl now?
For anyone new to her, the Gong Girl is the label’s recurring character, previously defined by confidence and control. This season shows a more vulnerable side of her. Gong is clear about how closely the two are linked: “She is me, and I am her.”
He says a few things in the collection are ones she probably wouldn’t have worn before. That is the part he enjoyed. She isn’t someone who stays the same forever, he says. She goes through new things and moves into different phases of her life, and that made the season feel fresh to him. It is a neat trick for a character: she gets a love life, a bad few weeks, and a wardrobe that follows.
The thing he didn’t expect to do
Ask Gong for the most unexpected decision of the process and he doesn’t mention a color or a silhouette. It was “not using any leather at all”. He called that probably the most surprising choice for himself. In a collection that sits between a night out and a breakup, the lace, sequins, feathers and tulle carry all of the weight, and nothing in it is leather.
As for what’s next, Gong gave nothing away. Asked whether there is a side of MARKGONG audiences haven’t seen yet, he said they’ll just have to wait and see how his story unfolds. With two chapters of Urban Love done, that reads less like a brush-off than a cliffhanger. Fans of a good heartbreak arc will be waiting for the third.
Via DSCENE
