Jake Zhang is forging fashion avatars for a post-physical world

In February, close to the beginning of Central Saint Martins’ 140-look MA show, a collection appeared on the runway that forced onlookers to cock their heads with a certain kind of intrigue. Muscle-laden lads in striking sportswear appeared on the catwalk, with cropped hoodies revealing hip bones, micro shorts skimming the upper thigh, and a pair of 3D y-fronts bulging from their wearers’ crotch. But amidst the grey sweats and snug lycra, there was also an air of cartoonishness, as if the boys had been spliced with digital avatars set free from the confines of a video game. “The collection is about trying to find joy in the future that feels a bit uncertain,” Jake Zhang told us at the time. “It’s about how we all have these digital escapes, like video games, cartoons. Instead of trying to escape with them, how do we bring them into the everyday?”

Today, Zhang’s Instagram is populated with the kinds of men you assume are his muses – all veiny arms and crotch shots, but still wearing his cartoonish clothes. The result is kind of like if Wolfgang Tillmans’ portraits had been made for the Power Rangers. Along with the merging of physical and digital worlds, this queering of sportswear seems to be central to Zhang’s work, subverting the codes of masculinity by reimagining men as a kind of digital-physical hybrid. “For me, it’s about always asking myself the question of who this man that I create is,” says Zhang. “If he were walking down the street or at a party, would people want to approach him? I always try to make sure that his sexuality and attractiveness don’t stem from intimidation.”

Below, we chat to Zhang about Max Power, his first collection since graduating from Saint Martins, the digital software he uses in his designs, and which celeb has got him dressing up like Cyclops.

What’s the reality of making your first collection since graduating from  Saint Martins? How different is it?

Jake Zhang: It’s definitely been challenging. I feel like I’ve had to relearn how to construct and finish garments without all the equipment and people that I relied on for support at uni. I feel like I’m much more resourceful now. It’s different not being around other creatives all day, but in some ways, this has helped me to avoid external pressures and minimise self-doubt. I feel like I can start to carve my own niche within the industry now.

In terms of design, it’s come a lot easier now that I’ve gone through the whole process before. I feel like I’ve started to develop what I’m really about as a designer – where I go to for research, what type of people I design for, and really think of my practice as a lifetime-long venture. I also feel like the response to my MA collection has really helped shape how I see my own work and how I want people to understand it, too.

What is Max Power about, and how is it a continuation of your MA collection? 

Jake Zhang: My work is always about trying to move forward, trying to capture how it feels to exist right now, in a world that can feel completely overwhelming – questioning how physical fashion should exist in a world that’s increasingly digital. I don’t believe fashion should offer a faraway fantasy; I think it should offer us a hopeful view of the future, within the context of reality. My MA collection was about digital escapes being brought into reality, thinking about a daily wardrobe that combined the two. This collection sits in the same context but is about our relentless desire to be more than human, thinking about a world beyond the physical limits of the human body.

I was looking a lot at Hasegawa’s paintings, and the photography of Tamotsu Yato – this idea of bodybuilding and male eroticism also being reflections of our desire to push the human body to its full capabilities. I was also watching a lot of sports anime when I was designing the collection, like Blue Lock – I love watching really exaggerated versions of reality. I wanted to explore the hunger we all have to push ourselves to the limit, and how the digital realm is a manifestation of that need. It’s trying to capture this feeling of excitement and the unknown.

We’re all preoccupied with a digital-physical reality because we’re constantly forced to endure it, so I’m trying to find a way of working and living within it that feels more optimistic 

Your design aesthetic is about creating “physical manifestations of digital realities”  by combining sportswear with digital avatars. Where does this preoccupation with a digital-physical reality come from? 

Jake Zhang: It’s easy to be nostalgic in times like these, which feel super dark. I see ourselves as having two options: the first is to be a Luddite – to reject technology, and constantly yearn for a pre-digital world, and the other is to face the harsh truth of the digital age and understand that the only way to move forward is to try and find joy in what we do have. A lot of the little joys I have day-to-day are from consuming digital media, like cartoons and YouTube. And within fashion, I love to play and experiment with different software and tools, and try things that would never be possible to visualise with just physical materials. I think that we’re all preoccupied with a digital-physical reality because we’re constantly forced to endure it, so I’m trying to find a way of working and living within it that feels more optimistic.  

Can you tell us about UV projection, 3D AI and some of the processes you’ve used in the collection? 

Jake Zhang: I start my design process by styling my own wardrobe on a body and then use AI to convert the images into 3D models. I try to use things in unconventional ways, for example, some of the garment silhouettes came from putting in images of the back of my MA collection into AI, to confuse it and see how it would interpret the front. I’ll also project images onto 3D models. There was a hoodie in my MA collection that was a result of me projecting a picture of a hoodie I owned onto a 3D model of a drape I did. I interpreted the silhouette through pattern-cutting, whilst interpreting the projection as decorative appliqué panels. The navy cut-out tracksuit bottoms in this collection came from projecting a Roblox avatar onto a 3D model and cutting away pieces.  

My design process is basically about taking different pieces of research, references and tests and merging them all together into one garment. I’ll take a collar from an AI experiment, and stitching from a jacket I love, and a silhouette from an old photograph I’ve found in the library, and find a way of piecing them together to make a coherent piece of clothing.

The clothes that you make queer sportswear, and in turn the codes of traditional masculinity – in your design process, how do you walk the line between subverting those codes and unintentionally adhering to them? 

Jake Zhang: It’s definitely something I’m always conscious of. It’s human nature for us to be weirdly attracted and excited by things that also scare us. People like to categorise queerness and masculinity as two opposite things, but we all possess aspects of both, and being aware of how they interact with one another is the key. Ultimately, it’s about considering the politics of how we dress and ensuring that the message is a positive one.

I also believe that to subvert, you need to exist within the very context you are trying to defy. If I were to completely reject codes of masculinity, then there would be no argument being made. I think you need to try and change things from within, by both adhering and subverting in different aspects.

People like to categorise queerness and masculinity as two opposite things, but we all possess aspects of both 

Now some quickfire questions. What’s your ghost outfit? 

Jake Zhang: My Nike tech fleece tracksuit, but I’d want it to be fully white.

Which four designers are in your Fashion Mount Rushmore? 

Jake Zhang: Romain Kremer, Jeremy Scott, Massimo Osti, Nigo.  

Which iconic supermodel is opening your next show?

Jake Zhang: Tyson Beckford.  

You wake up tomorrow and the fashion industry has disappeared. What are you retraining as? 

Jake Zhang: An orthodontist. 

Did you have a freakum outfit growing up? 

Jake Zhang: I’m not sure, but I used to feel pretty good wearing my Maharishi trousers to college.

Send the most recent picture/screenshot on your camera roll.

Jake Zhang: From the Gilbert and George exhibition gift shop.

You encounter a hostile alien race and fashion is their only mechanism for communication. What would you make them to inspire them to spare you and the rest of the human race?

Jake Zhang: One of the slogan t-shirts that Bart Simpson makes in that episode where he has a t-shirt business. 

What’s a fashion holy grail you’re yet to get your hands on?

Jake Zhang: An all grey BAPE full zip hoodie.

You’re trapped in a lift with your celebrity crush – who is it, and what are you wearing? 

Jake Zhang: Nicholas Hoult, and I’m dressed as Cyclops from X-Men.  

What fictional character do you most relate to and why? 

Jake Zhang: [Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s] Greg Heffley, because we’re lowkey twins.