Time to Re-Twee?
Sandy Liang’s quirky, colorful collection for the Fall/Winter 2025 could bring Twee to the 2020s.
Models backstage at Sandy Liang FW 2025, photographed by Lauren Leekley via Instagram. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
In a love letter to her childhood, Sandy Liang unleashed an explosion of textures, patterns, and color on the New York Fashion Week catwalk. Liang’s February 9th show of her Fall/Winter 2025 collection was nothing short of a spectacle. This year's audiences, both in person and anxiously awaiting online, have seen an endless parade of neutral palettes emphasizing old-money or business-chic looks. Liang offers a life raft to this sea of sophistication by reminding viewers that fashion should be fun and that our inner child deserves as much love as our office persona.
From left to right: Tilda Lindstam modeling Look 21, Lexie Tapper modeling Look 5, and Maud van der Meet modeling Look 30. Photographed by Filippo Fior via Sandy Liang.© All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
While the entire collection cannot be narrowed down to a single aesthetic, the elevator pitch for these looks would be a maximalist sister of twee. Twee, the modern version of Mod and the cutesy version of hipster exploded in popularity in the mid-2010s. Think, Katy Perry’s One of The Boys cover in a high-waisted sweetheart bikini or Emilia Clarke’s bumblebee tights as Louisa in the film Me Before You. The poster girl of twee was Zooey Deschanel’s Jessica Day in the hit sit-com New Girl, with her Peter Pan collared dresses and “rocking a lot of polka dots!” With influences everywhere from the 1950s fit-and-flare day dress to the printed tights and mini-skirts of the 1960s mod look, the Twee style can be boiled down to a quirky and girly take on vintage classics. Having grown up in the 2000s and 2010s, twee would definitely have some nostalgia for the designer, who described nostalgia as the theme of her collection.
The addition of prize ribbons, scribbled handwriting, and sparkly ballet flats create this theme and add to the illusion that the entire collection was the work of an imaginative young fashionista. Liang’s childhood is also displayed through the screen-prints of toys and how-to guides on making origami stars that are screen-printed onto skirts. However, Look 34, the outfit that appears to be an outlier from the rest, solidifies the collection’s narrative. The heart-shaped mirror surrounded by ribbon on the chest of a solid white dress is reminiscent of a vanity one might see in a childhood bedroom. This mirror is the first place one would have twirled around in a frilly dress or paired an outfit with a plastic purse to go to primary school. Within the show, it allows the audience to see their own joy reflected back to them as these memories are brought back to life. While a white gown with an almost Edwardian silhouette could so easily feel out of place, it offers a literal point of reflection during the show for the viewers to recall what they want fashion to mean to them.
Look 34, photographed by Lauren Leekley via Instagram. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
In essence, the joy of fashion is what twee is all about. General guidelines may determine the look, but at its core, twee is taking any look that speaks to you without worrying about the trends or the “correct” way to dress. Some may write the generous use of colors and patterns off as excessive or childish, but why should that be a bad thing? Liang’s work has shown that there is a place on the runway for clothes that spark youthful excitement. Hopefully, that means there is a place for it in the rest of the fashion world as well.
