Fashion has long been a bastion for free expression. One of the (many) reasons creatives flock to this industry is the opportunity to challenge conventional rules… and in doing so, turn a mirror on the culture at large. Think Claire McCardell advocating for daily practicality in women’s clothing or Yohji Yamamoto liberating the French runway from strict genderism. Good designers understand the way we dress informs how we are perceived in the world… great designers understand it can revolutionize how we show up.
As indicated by the name, these pieces are made in very limited quantities—just 50 to 100 per style. A small number is printed on each tag to indicate its place in the sequence. Like exclusive editions of artwork or books, these pieces are infused with heightened skill and care—few in the larger fashion market have access to them. We are lucky to have several of these styles in Workshop to share.
For Uma Wang’s Fall/Winter 2025, the designer called upon Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto, a Renaissance-era fresco depicting the pregnant Madonna in a stance of strength. A powerful symbol for the divine feminine, Uma muses on the painting’s motifs to define her own concepts of grit, presence and the responsibility of “bearing”—burdens, authority and babies included. As cleverly noted by Wang Zhi for Vogue, this collection seizes on the idea of women ‘taking up space’ and creates the armor ideal for doing so.
To emphasize this concept, Uma plays with the dials on volume, proportion and gesture to manipulate the possibility of form. There is a strong play between expansion and contraction in this season’s shapes. Exaggerated hips and shoulders sweep into elegantly cinched waists and softened torsos. The oversized tailoring is tempered by clean, flowing lines that lend each look its signature architecture. The clothes are soft and feminine, but with distinct power, implying strength as nuance and intuition rather than brute force.
Most salient in Uma’s ouvre is her interplay of modern and historical aesthetics. Hoop skirts and riding coats meet the cropped knitwear and distressed denim of contemporary design. On the runway, she augmented the collection further with sculptural silver jewelry and handmade hats from Karin and Makoto of Horisaki Design & Handel. While the silver was a clear nod to futurist design, the mushroom-like accessories from Horisaki evoked the hennin, the voluminous, steeple-shaped headwear preferred by European women in the Middle Ages.
“When the world tells you to shrink, expand.”
—Elaine Welteroth
