The rising style stars of 2026: Zane Li, fashion’s new minimalist

Zane Li’s clothes are endlessly intriguing. Starting from a flat shape, the Chongqing-born FIT graduate constructs garments the way an architect might a blueprint, leading to silhouettes that sit on the body in curiously sculptural ways. Launching his brand LII just two years ago, he has already been tapped as fashion’s most interesting new minimalist, but don’t let the term fool you – his sharp silhouettes pulsate with life, colour and sensuality, their shapes shifting around the body and revealing skin in shrewdly placed slivers of negative space.

Influenced by film directors such as Michael Haneke and David Cronenberg, Li also designs from the impulses of everyday life. His breakout collection was sparked by a jumbled pile of clothes on a friend’s sofa, and he launched menswear last year with a collection that subverted its tropes. After two seasons showing by appointment in Paris, Li returned to New York for his first runway show, presented in a small pink-carpeted gallery in Tribeca.

The rising style stars of 2026: Zane Li, fashion’s new minimalist

While making the collection, he had been watching Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film Memoria, which is soundtracked by a score of rhythmic drumming. In the studio, the jangle of keys in pockets and the crisp rustle of his cargo pants sharpened his ear to familiar fabrics, inspiring a collection that twisted wardrobe staples into sensory new forms. A strapless gown was spliced together from two rustling forest-green anoraks; organza shift dresses held trails of decorative detailing made from shirt sleeves; and brightly hued T-shirts were playfully cut with knicker-gusset hems.

The sharp, inventive collection feels like a culmination of his work to date. According to the designer, it emerged from embracing imperfections in the usually flat process. ‘Architectural shapes have always been a big inspiration,’ he says. ‘But during fittings, I realised a flap had swung the wrong way, or a string caught on the leg. At first, I tried to fix these accidents, and then I loved them and worked them into the collection. It was a good lesson in how clothes come to life.’

The day after the show, 20 stores called asking to buy the collection, but despite the response, Li says he still feels like a student. ‘Every time I go to the fabric market, I realise there’s so much I don’t know,’ he admits. His next display – a co-ed offering in Paris this January – is the result of absorbing everything he can, shaped by watching how people dress and move through Tokyo, Paris and New York. ‘This year is about working into our identity and making the brand efficient. Everything feels new.’

lii-studio.com

A version of this article appears in the January 2026 Next Generation Issue, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today