Sandy Liang: The Power of Girlhood
While May is specifically Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, it is crucial to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander creatives now and always. Means of support can take shape in many ways. However, living alongside the effects of the pandemic, shopping from Asian American and Pacific Islander brands is important now as it is invariably. The pandemic has resulted in significant losses for AAPI-owned businesses across the country. Therefore, promoting these businesses not only supports their owners but increases equity and solidarity across communities.
One fashion label I have fallen in love with over the years is New York native’s self-titled Sandy Liang. Liang often voices how “New York raised her”, expressing that her designs draw inspiration from the grandmothers in Chinatown, where her father owns the restaurant Congee Village. Her brand is a wonderful blend of nostalgia and playfulness, celebrating womanhood in all its stages. Sandy Liang strives to impress the grandmother and little girl who both live inside her, as her designs tell of the intelligence when age is paired with innocence.
Designer Sandy Liang, Photo: Courtesy of @stolenbesos
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Sandy Liang’s fabrications are deeply rooted in her Chinese-American heritage. Earlier this year, Liang released a Lunar New Year collection embracing the Year of the Rabbit. Manifested in bunny hair clips alongside bobbled roses, coupled together with red tights and Mary Janes– Sandy Liang encompasses the Year of the Rabbit’s fluidity and contemplation in the form of girlhood. Girlhood, her designs emit, is a passionate capsule of wisdom and empowerment.
Sandy Liang modeling for her Lunar New Year Collection, Photo: Courtesy of Nylon Magazine
Sandy Liang’s Lunar New Year Collection, Photo: Courtesy of @stolenbesos
“I’m just a girl designing for a girl,” Liang reveals in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. Sandy Liang broadens the typical consideration of what is dressing for a girl. She continues to express,
“I don’t know about you, but when I wear a dress, I feel like I have to get dressed up. So I love the idea of a girl just wearing a dress and she’s doing whatever she wants to do. She’s just going to work. She’s playing basketball. She’s going to the farmers’ market. She’s going to do anything she wants. And her outfit isn’t dictating what she thinks she should be doing.”
I think all girls can attest to this sense of everyday freedom that is unconstrained self expression. Growing up my mom would drop me off for softball games, often laughing to herself as I donned the field with my skirts and dresses paired with matching socks and tennis shoes. I never thought of these outfits as impractical or constricting, in fact I liked to say I had more mobility when sprinting to first base. As long as I was having fun and feeling good, my outfit meant little else in terms of practicality.
Me as a girl wearing a skirt to softball
Sandy Liang speaks to this inner little girl. As her interview with Harper’s Bazaar states, “It’s about becoming who you’ve been, a child just discovering pink or the simple pleasure of tying a ribbon onto a strand of hair.” This reclamation of girlhood in not only Sandy Liang, but the creative industry at large, speaks to the importance of nostalgia in fashion.
For children, creativity is as natural as breathing. Yet confidence in creativity starts with learning the art of self expression— an art acquired through independently dressing oneself. Dress up’s independence is liberating. It allows us to declare, “This is who I am, World!”
Sandy Liang’s revival of girlhood speaks to these moments of when we first began to truly express ourselves. She illustrates the exhilarating yet soothing delights of girlhood— and both its elusivity and specificity. While a girl’s adolescence may fade, it lives forever in symbols and tokens of memorabilia. Take her iconic bows scattered throughout models’ hair, or roses sewn onto evening party dresses.
Sandy Liang FW23 Backstage, Photo: Courtesy of @stolenbesos
Sandy Liang FW23 Backstage, Photo: Courtesy of @stolenbesos
These little stamps of what was once girlhood’s individuality are today’s little assertions of self empowerment. Sandy Liang keeps our girlhood close. The beginning and awe of our independence.
Article by Lucy Kaskie, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Isabella Gonzalez, Graphic Design Intern, PhotoBook Magazine