Yeung Chin Embroidered Asymmetrical Dress

Black lace on black cloth is the hardest version of an overlay to do, because contrast is what usually makes openwork legible and there is none here. What is left is depth: the lace sits a fraction above the ground, the holes in it catch a little less light than the cloth behind them, and the pattern arrives as shadow rather than as line. It reads at conversational distance and disappears at twenty feet, which is either the point or a failure depending on what you wanted. The rest of the dress is built the same way. The silhouette is asymmetric, so the eye has no line to settle on, and the hem is frayed rather than turned, so the garment does not end so much as run out. Three refusals in one dress: no contrast, no symmetry, and no finished edge.

Tonal lace is a much more difficult thing to buy well than contrasting lace, and most black-on-black attempts at it simply read as black. This one has depth in it at the distance you actually stand from someone.

Yeung Chin studied Miao technique directly, batik and hand embroidery and folding, and what returns into the collection is a consistent interest in what can be done to a surface after the cloth exists.

One hundred percent cotton. Asymmetrical silhouette, overlaid black lace details, frayed hem. Made in Hong Kong. Color: Black.

Asymmetric, so it is not cut to a body symmetrically and the fit is set at the shoulder rather than at the waist. An overlay adds thickness without adding structure, so the dress hangs as its ground cloth hangs. The frayed hem is a live edge that will move a little further with washing and then hold.

Over the Wool Felted Pants, where a very heavy black meets a very light one. With the Belt, if the asymmetry wants gathering somewhere. Under the Crop Vest Jacket.

Two things at once: openwork catches, and a frayed hem keeps fraying under heat and agitation. Both point the same way. Hand wash cool or have it cleaned, keep it out of a machine and out of a dryer, and dry it flat. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Embroidered Long Pants carry the same lace overlay along the whole leg, and the Embroider T-Shirt carries it on a short-sleeve shirt. Everything we carry from Yeung Chin is listed together.