A few seasons ago a stylist friend referred to the work of Robert Wun, a Hong Konger designer who started showing haute couture in January of 2023, as “clown couture.” He was making an offhand joke, and perhaps being a little dismissive of Wun’s outlandish, imaginative couture: dresses that look like they’re made of burned paper or covered in (crystal) raindrops.
Wun, who is based in London, has become an unexpected runaway couture hit. He started his career with a ready-to-wear collection back in 2014, which garnered him some industry attention some five years in but did not materialize into major success. When in 2022 he won a special recognition at the ANDAM Awards, he gained a mentorship from Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel. It is the executive who encouraged him to pivot into couture, and who led, Wun says, a unanimous vote for his inclusion on the calendar. Now, as the first Hong Konger designer at Paris Couture Week, he’s become a name to watch, mostly due to his many celebrity fans: Wun dressed a whopping nine guests at the 2026 Met Gala, including Lisa, Naomi Osaka, Jordan Roth, and Beyoncé, who changed into one of his designs once inside the event. He says that last summer, Andrew Bolton, the chief curator in charge at the museum’s Costume Institute, met him for lunch after an introduction by Meta executive Eva Chen. Bolton proceeded to acquire two of his looks for the museum.
Even more impressive: Wun doesn’t make custom dresses for celebrities for free, he told me at a preview on Sunday. “We are a small team, and we get paid by everyone,” he said.
Wun’s show today was inspired by the idea of child’s play, he said. As is usual with him, he was literal: He made dresses in primary colors and easy shapes to reference our learning process as children. One of his hats referenced Cinderella’s glass slipper, and another Maleficent’s horns. There was a dress that had blown-up balloons and another that had a skeleton embroidered as a nod to Jack Skellington. It was charming, impressively made, and very on the nose.
It seems that with this collection Wun is now wholly embracing his reputation as a pop couturier. When I asked him how he felt as a name that inevitably stands out in the schedule, be that for his background or the playful nature of his work, which contrasts with the more high-brow inspirations by designers like Roseberry at Schiaparelli or Anderson at Dior, who this season referenced the work of artist Lynda Benglis Wun, he said it’s a certain freedom to be different by default. “I don’t have to, in a sense, respect those traditions,” Wun said of the general stuffiness of haute couture.
It’s not just celebrities he dresses: Wun said he’s built a portfolio of clients. His primary market is the US, followed by China and the Middle East. “We have managed to grow a portfolio of clients that simply just enjoy the work that we create,” he said. Around 35% to 40% of his sales also come from art collectors, so people who buy the work as art, not to wear. “It makes sense for me to carry on with this direction,” he said. Clown couture or not, Wun is the master showman of an impressive, enviable circus.
