For his SS25 collection, Chet Lo looked to his own mother, Mai-Wah Cheung, for sartorial inspiration. A former businesswoman who strived in a male-dominated industry, many of the looks in the show referenced officewear and featured a surprisingly muted palette for the usually vibrant designer. Of course, Lo’s trademark spikes had to make an appearance and they were on abundant display in plenty of new and genuinely fun ways (you have to love the simple grey office shirt adorned with spikes on the outer sleeves). The show notes described Cheung as having begun her career as one of the first women in Computer Sciences, before becoming the Chief Information Officer at news network Univision. She later took a new path towards teaching and painting.

Something that Lo doesn’t get enough credit for is his tailoring, which is often the most interesting aspect of his collections. The trousers in Look 10, for example, have a complex folded structure that could not have been easy to make. One wonders what would happen if Lo focused a whole collection on those tailoring skills? The versatility cannot be denied here. See also the glitchy plaid patterns inspired by the digital world, which were rendered in textural and printed forms and inspired by Cheung’s digital expertise.

As Lo’s mother moved out of the digital world in her later career, so did the collection. Cheung picked up the paintbrush and the garments became more serene, more art studio chic. Textures played a crucial role in this section and the fruits of Cheung’s artworks became a recurring motif. The whole collection was a tribute to a woman who embodies reinvention, of a whole life’s work told through clothing.