Colour Theory

Sies Marjan’s rainbow shades have taken fashion by storm. Creative Director Sander Lak tells Zaneta Cheng about the unifying power of pigment and how he has turned design on its head.

- Zaneta Cheng

EVERYONE KNOWS that New York’s favourite hue is black. The sombre shade is more appropriate now than ever before in the Big Apple, given America’s new political and cultural climate. But something has recently taken a hold over the city – colour.

That grip belongs to fashion’s new favourite American label, Sies Marjan, a name that exploded on to the New York Fashion Week calendar one dreary mid-February day in 2016 in a riot of hues. Anna Wintour, Cathryn Horyn and Nicole Phelps were only a few of the fashion-journalism greats who attended the debut show. Beyoncé wore a dress days after the collection launched – and before long, every other post on social media was a photo of fashion insiders wearing drapey satin tops in bright blue, and jumpers in Big Bird yellow.

When I speak to Sander Lak, the creative director behind the label, he tells me that colour was always going to dictate the collections. After spending years honing his craft at brands like 3.1 Phillip Lim and Dries Van Noten, he took the plunge to do it his way. Now with four shows under his belt, black is still nowhere to be seen, yet Lak’s work continues to captivate.

Lak’s own approach to colour may explain his brand’s popularity. “I wear a lot of colour myself,” he says. “I think colour is the best way of working for me because it’s so abstract. It’s also timeless. Colours have hundreds of references to them. Everyone has a personal attachment to colours, so everyone sees and feels something different. And I think that’s why it’s so great to work with colour, there are no limits.”