Sandy Liang: 10 Years of Fashioning Girlhood
“First put on a really, really tiny top. Then, put on a pleated skirt, some knee-high socks, hiking shoes — preferably Salomons. Put your hair up into braids or space buns or pigtails. Add some dad sunglasses and some bows everywhere. That’s it.”
You’re officially a Sandy Liang girl.
2023 was inarguably the year of the girl: from hot girl walks and girl dinners, to the Barbie movie, Priscilla and Poor Things, to bows adorning plaits and champagne coupes, and the blockbuster Renaissance and Era tours. We were in a girl economy. 2023 was also a knockout year for a designer who has been fashioning girlhood for a decade. Sandy Liang went from being a “if you know, you know” downtown New York designer to being a reoccurring reference and source of inspiration to women and girls beyond Hester street in record speed, especially for an emerging favourite. Today, you can barely walk three blocks without seeing a pleated grey skirt, a ballet flat or a bow on a jacket, or a bag, or on earlobes, or around ankles, or on a phone case … you get the gist.
Sandy Liang is the girl of the moment and I believe the reason she resonates so strongly with women and fashion afficionados right now is a result of a confluence of factors: her smart collaborations with brands like Vans, Salomons and Target, the political moment we find ourselves in where womanhood and women’s rights are being reneged and re-negotiated, and her indisputable design talent.
For the uninitiated, Sandy Liang is a womenswear designer who launched her label after graduating from Parsons School of Design in 2014. A Queens native and child of Chinese immigrants, Liang spent her formative years in New York’s Chinatown, where her parents owned (and still do) a chain of restaurants — Congee Village. Growing up, Liang was not allowed to get new clothes outside of back-to-school sales, which meant that her closet was mostly outfitted with hand-me-downs from relatives and family friends. Her look, today, is inspired by her own girlhood encountering old ladies in Chinatown and remixing garments that have been passed down. She told The Business of Fashion in 2019, that an outfit she loved when she was a child was a pink lace pyjama top with a Peter Pan-collar paired with olive green overalls. A mix of girly and gorp, a design style she leans heavily on today.
Ultimately, Sandy Liang, the label, and Sandy Liang, the woman, are difficult to distinguish. She designs for whimsy and practicality — ultimately, the Sandy girl is dressed like a princess who has to ride the D train. In way, she is designing clothes she, too, would wear. And she does. The brand’s Instagram account also functions as her own personal account, with e-commerce images of models with perfectly stiff bows interspersed with photo dumps of her dog, her meals and many a mirror selfie at the label’s flagship store on 28 Orchard Street.
Liang is in the business of selling nostalgia. Part and parcel of being a Sandy girl is being a version of yourself when you were little. It isn’t a defined aesthetic that can be commodified because it looks different on everyone, but this also means anyone can participate. And labels wanting to partner with Liang have come in droves. In 2020 and again in 2022, Sandy Liang collaborated with Vans on a line of sneakers and apparel inspired by the “‘90s and childhood nostalgia.” In 2021, Target tapped the designer to create a collection complete with smocked dresses and printed fleeces. Last year, Salomons and Baggu wanted a piece of the girlhood pie went they enlisted the designer to collaborate on a sneaker line and handbag line, respectively. (The collabs were so successful that DePop girlies are justifying charging over 300% of the retail price on hype alone.)
This begs the question: why do grown women want to dress like little girls?
Because being a woman is really fucking hard right now. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, women have been losing their rights to bodily autonomy by the second. Abortion is now banned much earlier than Roe’s ruling in 21 states. Conservative politicians, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are huge advocates for no-fault divorce, which entitles a married person to leave their marriage even if the other person disagrees, which has been precedent for over 50 years. On top of all of this, the idea of who even gets to count as a woman is consistently under threat, with trans women bearing the brunt of femicide and medical and societal discrimination.
I can see why tapping into ideals of hyperfemininty, like girlhood, can seem like a refuge from the institutional violence enacted on women right now, especially queer, disabled and women of colour. In this sense, tapping into femininity and girlhood can be empowering, and this is what Liang’s subversion of hyper feminine clothes is all about. That choosing to be a girl in a world that is telling to keep your head down is empowering.
But little girls can’t stay little forever. At some point, they have to put on their big girl pants — and bows — and march for their rights.
Enter: Sandy Liang Autumn/Winter 2024.
Two weeks ago, Sandy Liang showed her latest collection which followed, according to the show notes, “a schoolgirl who grows up to be a princess.” The Sandy girl is now a woman who works a 9-to-5, calls her ailing parents and has to remember she has after school pick up. The bows were noticeably much smaller, the puff sleeves had deflated, the dramatic Peter Pan-collars are more demure. Nothing about this Sandy girl, however, is reserved. She has realised that there is also power in restraint. This season, Sandy Liang also debuted leather handbags — a sign that the Sandy girl is all grown up and needs a place to store her credit cards and cellphone.
Sandy Liang has achieved what few emerging designers have had the capacity to do: maintain the label’s niche following while becoming a commercially successful business.
Here’s to 10 years of fashioning girlhood!
