Inside Moncler's Shanghai "City of Genius" With A$AP Rocky, NIGO, Donald Glover and More
Across the CSSC Pavilion’s 30,000-square-meter venue, 8,000 guests explored the Italian outerwear label’s collaborative megalopolis in a chaotic convergence of fashion and fandom.
On Saturday night, a glimpse of South Korean singer YEONJUN’s red hair was enough to incite fans’ thunderous roars inside Moncler’s Shanghai City of Genius—a puffed-up metropolis with a population of 8,000 (shrieking) guests and divided into 10 “neighborhoods” designed by Edward Enniful, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Lulu Li, NIGO, Palm Angels, A$AP Rocky, Willow Smith, Donald Glover, Rick Owens and Jil Sander.
In Owens’ quarters, Anne Hathaway’s regal wave from atop the designer’s futuristic shelter installation was cause for a flash-on mob; Jada Pinkett Smith’s visit to her daughter’s district provoked hoards of howling supporters, as did Naomi Campbell’s stopover in her comrade Enniful’s land. When A$AP Rocky and Rihanna took their first steps on Planet Moncler, well, all hell (or heaven?) broke loose. That night, the 30,000-square-meter CSSC Pavilion was a blissfully lawless land, one where fashion and fandom chaotically converged on the same soil.
Muting the yells for supermodel Campbell, Enniful’s collaboration with the Italian outerwear label tested the elements in three extreme scenes: a sandstorm, snowstorm and windstorm. The former British Vogue Editor-in-Chief’s designs—dramatic, layered and textural black coats—dressed nomadic sand dune explorers and frozen iceberg dwellers alike. The spectacle was fashionably dystopian, especially considering the iced-over copies of Vogue thawing under one model’s hands.
Down the street, Fujiwara hung his designs over a startlingly still pool of thick black liquid, creating a reflective work of art titled Looking Glass, 2024. The FRGMT designer’s takes on the Moncler puffer—light, packable versions with innocent kitten designs, reversible colorways, vivid interior linings and quotes from Nietszche and Artistotle—slowly raised and lowered above the mirrored surface, which was made in collaboration with British sculptor Richard Wilson RA.
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In a brighter zone, Glover brought his Gilga Farm in Ojai, California, to Paris of the East. The bright orange grove served as the mellow backdrop for his playful collection, which included peach and meringue-tinged workwear coats, suede overshirts and lightweight jackets with cartoonish patches.
Lulu Li turned the brightness up another notch, toying with light, perception and reflection in a one-way mirrored installation. Crafted with the artist’s AI explorations, the capsule of down jackets, vests and metropolitan layers pulled from Li’s digital inspirations and minimalist Zen codes.
NIGO, meanwhile, joined forces with both Moncler and Mercedes-Benz to create a one-off, puffer-covered G-Class, titled Project Mercedes-Benz G-Class Past II Future. “I’m a big fan of the G-Wagen,” NIGO told Hypebeast through a translator. “Mercedes proposed the 1971 model for this collaboration, and from there, I tweaked the color and details. I also renovated the engines from the 1954 300 Series, and I enjoyed adapting the old models for today.”
Notably, NIGO’s car was fitted with Devon Turnbull’s OJAS speakers. “I went to [Devon's] New York listening room, and he played ‘Moanin” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers on his speakers,” NIGO said. “It was mind-blowing. It sounded like it was live right in front of me.” So, naturally, he’s also swapped the sound-sculpting system into his personal collection of Mercedes-Benz cars, too.
In the City of Genius, the one-of-one vehicle will not drive off NIGO’s lot, but the visionary does have dreams of “riding it through Tokyo,” he said with a laugh. What fans can take home, though, is the trio’s accompanying ready-to-wear collection, which merges the heritage of the three collaborators on jackets, T-shirts and sweats.
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Around the bend, Palm Angels constructed an adrenaline-fueled racetrack, soundtracked by the roaring engines of go-karts. Drivers wore the brand’s Moncler collaboration, which consisted of Italianate racing gear and Americana-inspired university wares. Those who peered behind the helmet could spot Palm Angels designer Francesco Ragazzi turning the track with impressive speed.
In Rocky’s neck of the woods, guests cozied up in a futuristic, mountainside lounge pit, where real and AI-generated projections blurred the lines between what was authentic and what wasn’t. What happened next, however, was indeed real: the Bottega Veneta-clad rapper entered the room with Rihanna, who wore a coat from Rocky’s Moncler collab, and the two sat in the center of the chasm, dancing over champagne flutes before a kaleidoscopic runway ensued. Dotted with AWGE references and nods to his highly-anticipated fourth album Don’t Be Dumb, Rocky’s collection was filled with moto and biker-inspired details, like protective shoulder, knee and elbow pads, as well as insulated vests, gauntlet gloves and helmet hats. The show concluded; the cute couple exited, and the cheers that erupted outside might as well have woken up all of Shanghai. It could have been a dream, but it wasn’t.
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Down yonder, Willow’s world was a post-apocalyptic garden, where humans and nature harmoniously co-existed. Filled with prosperous vegetation, the “abandoned village” was revived with organic life, some of which included her bulbous black-and-white designs. The standouts among them were form-fitting gowns, tough body-hugging layers and rounded down boots.
Where Smith’s block was down on Earth, Owens’ sanctuary was sky-high. The ritualistic designer built a mountainous “Refuge,” or an off-grid shelter capable of withstanding all weather conditions, around which his collection circled. Under strong lights and ominous fog, Owens’ alien-like uniform—oversized puffers, flight jackets, sprawling robes and massive boots—was enforced. Rick’s cult prevailed again.
In contrast to all the aforementioned chaos, Lucie and Luke Meier’s clean Jil Sander vision was framed by a 360-degree curved screen flaunting beautiful natural visuals. The two designers staged their collection on the same runway countless times throughout the night, as a place to “pause and take a cleansing breath.” The line housed shearling-inspired wool, paper “feathers,” voluminous padded textiles on cocooning silhouettes championing Moncler’s signatures. A classy, purist moment it was.
At the end of the night, the City of Genius’ denizens united under a central stage, where performance director Henry Lau staged a multi-pronged show with an opening act by Yue opera actress Chen Lijun. Lau performed his own best-hits reel, scored by a dazzling light show and pro choreography. It was a fireworks-worthy finale, and the volume inside Moncler’s megalopolis had never been higher.
Step inside Moncler’s Shanghai City of Genius above.
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