.new collection
Bad Binch Tong Tong Goes to Church (and Space)
*NYFW Spring/Summer 2025
written Malcolm Thomas
Aliens, divinity, and love were at the heart of Bad Binch Tong Tong’s latest collection.
Like a great roll of spandex, the crowd stretched outside St. Bartholomew’s Church and around the corner of 325 Park Avenue on a balmy Saturday afternoon. At first glance, a passerby might be more curious as to how a church had managed to attract such an unlikely crowd and such blatant attention from the public in a city that has quite literally seen it all, that was until Bad Binch Tong Tong took over one of Manhattan’s most exclusive zip codes for a fashion show, of course. Let me set the scene: the front steps of the church were filled with news cameras and paparazzi; the guests: the famous and the infamous, including America’s favorite bad girl, Anna Delvey (who was working the door) and the ringleader responsible for gathering up such a double-take-worthy group of fashion counter culturists no other than the Queen of New York PR, Kelly Cutrone. In short, a time would not only be had but ordained.
Now let’s talk about the show because the Forbes 30 under 30 designer, Terrence Zhou, whose label’s moniker is a combination of a childhood nickname and his birth name, did not only give us a collection, he gave us a show! Much like the designer’s fashion persona that lives somewhere between satire and mad genius, his Spring/Summer 2025 collection, Whisper Across Dimensions was unequivocally out of this world.
Inspired by aliens, think The Day The Earth Stood Still meets The Fifth Element, Zhou imagined a reality where aliens finally make contact with the earth, culminating into a cautious trek, the alien’s shimmering air membranes protecting them from the harshness of our world communicated through what can only be described as pumpkin-shaped pods turned into sculptural improbabilities in the many shapes and sizes of sci-fi dresses and even wearable flowers.
Told through music composed by Katie Jenkins that belonged in a blockbuster epic and led by dancers choreographed by Stefanie Nelson, the Parsons and Central Saint Martins alum ended his Iliad with a dance of his own, unsurprisingly with fabric, before inviting the cast onto the stage which erupted the audience into applause and then to their feet as they rushed for a second chance to marvel at the collection up close.
I went into Bad Binch Tong Tong with no expectations but was thrilled to be allowed to escape the worries and fears of these times, if even just for a moment; to sum it up best, there was one particular line from the program that I found quite poignant. It reads, “The show is not just a display of fashion but a sacred communion, a place where we can feel the presence of higher beings, where the dimensions overlap, and where love is the only truth that matters.”
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(c) Bad Binch Tong Tong, NYFW 2025 - Spring/Summer 2025