Raxxy
Brand: RAXXY
Interviewee: WILLIAM SHEN, FOUNDER / CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Year Founded: 2020
Location: SHANGHAI\MILAN
Website: raxxy.com
Instagram: @christopherraxxy_official
Vanish (V): Can you tell us about your background in mathematics and how it guides your design process?
William Shen (WS): My background in mathematics began early, through competitive problem-solving and advanced training that shaped the way I approach structure and logic. I was involved in high-level mathematical competitions during my formative years, which instilled discipline, precision, and an understanding that every system must resolve itself coherently. That way of thinking has stayed with me. Mathematics trained me to see form as consequence rather than decoration. In my design process, garments are treated as systems: proportions are deliberate, balance is calculated, and tension is engineered into the structure. I don’t begin with emotion or narrative, I begin with logic. When construction is resolved, emotion emerges naturally through clarity and restraint.
V: Your first collection was a radical new aesthetic and departure from most of the fashion industry — how did the market react?
WS: The reaction was polarized, which felt inevitable. When something doesn’t align with established categories, discomfort is often the first response. Some people didn’t know how to read it, while others connected immediately. I wasn’t aiming for instant acceptance, I was looking for recognition. The audience that understood the work did so without explanation, which confirmed the clarity of the language.
V: How do you personally define your design style?
WS: Restrained, architectural, and intentionally tense. Raxxy operates in a space of control, clean lines, precise construction, and subtle aggression. It’s not about spectacle or nostalgia. It’s about precision and presence, about garments that feel resolved yet quietly confrontational rather than loud.
V: What is the design culture like in China today?
WS: It’s ambitious and fast-moving, but still in transition. There is exceptional technical ability and a strong drive to innovate, yet many designers are still negotiating identity through external reference points. The most compelling work today comes from those who stop translating themselves for validation and begin speaking with certainty from their own position.
V: Where are you currently pulling inspiration from?
WS: Architecture, industrial systems, and environments where function dictates form. I’m also deeply interested in human behavior, particularly how people protect themselves, visually and psychologically. Clothing as a form of modern armor is an idea I return to often, not symbolically but structurally. That thinking was central to the show staged on the Great Wall of China in October 2021, where scale, history, and human presence exist in constant tension — a context that mirrors how I consider garments in relation to the body and its environment.
V: What’s on the horizon next for you and your brand?
WS: We’re entering a phase of gradual and considered growth. The Harrods pop-up in January was an important moment of observation rather than affirmation, an opportunity to see how the brand’s language engages with an international audience and a historic retail context, without forcing its presence. From this season onward, together with our European partners, we are expanding wholesale selectively, prioritizing long-term relationships built on shared understanding. Direct retail remains a future step, to be approached with patience and coherence, once the brand is ready to sustain a more direct dialogue with its audience.
V: Is there anything specific you’d like to discuss that we didn’t cover?
WS: It’s important to acknowledge that fashion is never just about clothing. It’s about identity, control, and distance, how people choose to present themselves or remain untouchable. When designers accept that reality, the work becomes more honest. That’s the space Raxxy operates in.
