by Emily Duff
APUJAN’s Spring Summer 2025 (SS25) show at London Fashion Week felt like stepping into a world where fantasy meets the fast-paced rhythm of modern life. Known for blending intricate textiles with narrative depth, APUJAN's latest collection, Mirror, Keys, and Drink Me, transported the audience into a storybook world through whimsical references, playful proportions, and reflections on our hyper-connected world.
When asked how Taiwan's fashion scene informs his work, APUJAN spoke with admiration for the creatives from his home country. "Taiwanese fabrics, textiles, and the support from countless textile factories, musicians, pattern makers, and other creators who, like me, move between Taiwan and the UK, are all silently embedded in this collection," he explained. These influences aren't immediately obvious but form the backbone of the innovative materials and techniques that define his brand. For SS25, there’s a sense of tradition, but APUJAN is a designer with his eyes firmly on the future.
Mirror, Keys, and Drink Me - a title that evokes a vivid image of Alice in Wonderland’s surreal adventures - serves as the perfect metaphor for our current era. In a world where social media blurs reality and exaggerates our sense of scale, APUJAN draws inspiration from the magical potion Alice drinks, making her grow larger or smaller.
“You’ll see oversized buttons, pencils, pin cushions, and shrunken garments,” he shared, “symbolising how, in this social media age, we sometimes lose touch with our real sense of scale, unsure if we are still small or have grown.” This playful manipulation of size reflects a deeper commentary on how we navigate a world of infinite scrolling and fleeting community-driven moments.
Besides the Lewis Carroll classic, if there were a book club to accompany the SS25 show, attendees might find themselves flicking through the works of Taiwanese writer Chen Dezhen. With literary influences often dictating APUJANs collection themes, a surprising addition was Go (Weiqi) game records being incorporated into this season's designs, offering a subtle contrast to typical Western chess motifs.
Designing dance costumes for the Yunmen Dance Collection also had a direct impact on how APUJAN approaches design. The costumes “require a different approach, focusing on handcrafted pieces, hand-dyeing, and customising each costume to match the individual dancer's body and movements,” he explained, highlighting how they meticulously hand-dyed each piece in earthy tones so that they “ultimately became extensions of the dancers' bodies.”
The idea of movement extends into his runway collections as well, both in terms of its wearers moving freely and his journeys between Taiwan and Britain. “Taiwan’s market isn't as large as the UK’s, but this often creates early cross-disciplinary collaborations, which help us execute international opportunities more completely in the future,” he shared, explaining that “the Taiwanese fashion industry is still developing, especially in understanding brand identity. However, Taiwan has excellent textile resources that support creators in technical experimentation, helping independent brands tell their stories more fully.”
Having debuted at London Fashion Week in 2013, APUJAN has witnessed the fashion scene evolve across more than a decade. “In London, you encounter fashion professionals from all over the world, so avant-garde and diverse, constantly stimulating us with new ideas and showing us endless possibilities in fashion,” he shared. This melting pot of global influences pushes his design practice, encouraging experimentation and challenging conventions.
While London is a hub for innovation, APUJAN acknowledges the unique creative processes found in Taiwan, particularly in how its smaller market encourages early cross-disciplinary collaborations. Taiwan’s excellent textile resources, though lesser-known globally, provide a solid foundation for technical experimentation and boundary-pushing designs.
APUJAN is known for pushing the boundaries of knitting techniques and textile innovation, and the SS25 collection is no exception. This season, he introduced a new fabric innovation: the combination of resin and fabric. Previously used in textile installations, this technique is now being applied to garments, bringing an unexpected, almost sculptural quality to his designs. “We also collaborated with film art designers,” he mentioned, “bringing props-like costumes into wearable and producible pieces.” It’s this cross-pollination of disciplines that keeps APUJAN’s work fresh, exciting, and full of surprises.
When asked to sum up his SS25 collection in just three words, APUJAN selected “Fantastical, unsure of its size, theatrical.” It’s a fitting description for a collection that plays with the boundaries of reality and fantasy, blending Taiwanese craftsmanship with global influences, all while remaining in a Wonderland of modern fashion.