![\"Side](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/e5c7e280-957e-450d-9602-648cd6ed6b01.jpg\" "\\"Side")
<\/p>\nSome of Zane Li\u2019s designs are so confounding, it\u2019s hard to believe they\u2019re real. Crisp rectangles of primary colors that bend and fold sumptuously off the body. Dresses that hover as if suspended by invisible wires. On the hanger, they can be intimidating, with more openings and sleeves than the average wearer might know what to do with.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the designer.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the fun part actually happens between the dressing and undressing moment,\u201d Li explains to me from a studio in Chongqing, his hometown in southwestern China. (He now splits his time between Chongqing and New York City.) Motioning to a rack of samples, he gushes over the unexpected shapes that can emerge during fittings. Sometimes they even inspire him to go back and incorporate those ideas into the original designs. \u201cIt\u2019s basically a whole conversation about fabric and your flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Fashion](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/a0ef8c12-244c-4988-aef5-30d61f9637df.jpg\" "\\"Fashion")
Courtesy of the designer.<\/p>\n
Li at work in his studio.<\/p>\n
As a boy, he would escape the harsh nature of his \u201cmega giant city\u201d through his mother\u2019s beauty salon\u2014specifically, via the fashion magazines he found there, which he credits with opening his eyes and imagination to a life beyond his home. He was drawn to the subversive elegance of Calvin Klein and Helmut Lang. The way they seemed to \u201cmerge casualness into high fashion\u201d felt more desirable to him than the work of their maximalist peers. At 18 years old, to the bewilderment of most of his family, he enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, hoping to follow in his heroes\u2019 footsteps.<\/p>\n
![\"lii](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0e88f7f0-6d39-4dc1-96dc-eebe0a03133c.jpg\" "\\"LII")
Jonas Gustavsson<\/p>\n
A look from LII\u2019s spring\/summer 2026 collection.<\/p>\n
Just as Li was beginning to live out his dream, the COVID-19 pandemic hit during his freshman year, and he shifted to remote learning and studying patternmaking online. Rather than holding him back, the change in circumstances gave him the time and space to build out his brand, LII. Not long after graduating, Li released his debut collection, quietly via lookbook, in February 2024. A week later, he was overnighting Look 11 to Greta Lee<\/a>\u2019s stylist Danielle Goldberg. \u201cI was drawn to the fact that Zane\u2019s designs were silhouettes I had never seen before,\u201d says Goldberg, who is herself known for blending simplicity and adventurousness to striking effect. She has been one of the brand\u2019s most vocal champions; her clients Ayo Edebiri<\/a> and Eva Victor<\/a> are fans now, too. (Li has also been named as a semi-finalist for this year\u2019s LVMH Prize.<\/a>)<\/p>\n Greta Lee in LII at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.<\/p>\n Last September, LII mounted its New York Fashion Week debut. It was an evolution of the established brand language, now incorporating more colors and textures. Slick raincoats with contrasting elastic pulls. Featherlight nylon that seemed to resist gravity and move in slow motion. The setting was a Tribeca gallery space, nodding to Li\u2019s own creative process, which usually involves taking in the new works on view in Chelsea. The moodboard was tacked with photographs of two installations: Doug Wheeler\u2019s Day Night Day and Christian Marclay\u2019s Subtitled, both of which informed Li\u2019s approach to this collection, as the brand leapt from two-dimensional images to a three-dimensional world.<\/p>\n LII spring\/summer 2026.<\/p>\n Film helped with this, too. Li cites Michael Haneke\u2019s Funny Games, Jacques Tati\u2019s Playtime, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul\u2019s Memoria\u2014films from different times and different corners of the world that all seem preoccupied with questions about modernity\u2014as particularly influential.<\/p>\n A closer look at one of the spring\/summer 2026 pieces.<\/p>\n Li\u2019s clothes seem most at home in a built environment\u2014framed by concrete and steel, glass and right angles\u2014but they aspire to bring something more human and even a little messy to that forced formality. There\u2019s a duality at work, an effort to bridge ideas and points of view. Familiar and uncanny. Genderless and sexy. Simple and cerebral. Casual and elegant. The world he grew up in and the one he observed from afar.<\/p>\n When I ask Li what he\u2019s working on next, he laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s still, like, scatters,\u201d he says, but there are Post-it notes strewn about his desk with ideas. One looks like a double-breasted vest with a funnel neck, but there are arrows indicating some kind of movement. Another that looks like a turnstile or a pinwheel is labeled \u201copen skirt.\u201d There\u2019s very little chance I actually understand what I\u2019ve seen. \u201cAnd then, you know, you have to make them real.\u201d<\/p>\n A version of this story appears in the March 2026 issue of ELLE.<\/p>\n![\"2024](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/dba8e59c-fe94-425c-a6a5-5dcce6b32588.jpeg\" "\\"2024")
Araya Doheny\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"lii](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0047ac1c-c5eb-4ef4-a1de-4b8d6e5c6209.jpg\" "\\"LII")
Jonas Gustavsson<\/p>\n![\"Model](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/85f5db95-7385-4835-a0ca-812bb6138c45.jpg\" "\\"Model")
Courtesy of the designer<\/p>\n